What Are Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics?

Broad spectrum antibiotics are specially designed antibiotics to protect against a wide variety of bacteria. They come in handy if a patient needs to be quickly cured of an infection or if the doctor is unable to diagnose the exact kind of bacteria causing the disease. Read on to know pros and cons as well as common kinds of these antibiotics.

What Are Broad Spectrum Antibiotics?

In general, any chemical made by one microorganism that is used to destroy or hinder the spread of other microorganisms is known as an antibiotic. Broad spectrum antibiotics are chemical substances that protect against many different kinds of microorganisms (gram positive and gram negative bacteria) that may cause disease and infection.

Uses

• They may be prescribed in the case where the bacteria causing infection in the patient has developed resistance to narrow spectrum drugs actually used to kill them.
• Infection in patients is not always caused by one kind of microorganism; a whole group of a range of different bacteria may be causing the infection, which is commonly referred to as a super infection. If such a case arises, the doctor may prescribe several different antibiotics to target the microorganisms, or simply a broad spectrum antibiotic.
• They are also administered when doctors are unsure about the exact nature of disease causing microorganism, and do not wish to delay treatment in case the disease turns out to be fatal.

Advantages

There are two main advantages of using these antibiotics.

• They are developed to target and protect against a whole range of different bacteria, not just one specific kind of bacteria.
• Even when doctors are still waiting to confirm their diagnosis about which organism exactly is causing the infection, broad spectrum antibiotics can be administered. This ensures that treatment is started immediately and is not delayed, and can potentially prevent the infection from turning deadly.

Disadvantages

Despite the advantages discussed above, they may not be preferred by all due to two key disadvantages.

• If broad spectrum antibiotics are administered to a patient, there is a greater chance of him developing resistance to the drugs used.
• Studies have shown that if broad spectrum antibiotics are used to treat a child who is less than one year of age, then he is effectively made more vulnerable to developing breathing problems, such as childhood asthma.

Examples of Broad Spectrum Antibiotics