Cefpodoxime: new dosage. A new, unproven, dose regimen.

(1) Oral cefpodoxime, a third-generation cephalosporin, has a reduced treatment duration for recurrent pharyngitis; but this is based on a single unblinded trial. (2) At the end of the 5-day treatment during the trial, the clinical efficacy of cefpodoxime was no different from that of a 10-day course of penicillin V or the amoxicillin + clavulanate combination. (3) The relapse rate at 6 months is uninterpretable because many patients were lost to follow-up and were not included in the statistical analysis. To our knowledge the second indication granted for cefpodoxime, chronic tonsillitis, has not been validated in clinical trials. (4) Trivialising cefpodoxime may induce antibiotic resistance.