MHRA issues guidance on fluoroquinolone antibiotics

The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority has issued guidance on fluoroquinolone antibiotics. They are usually prescribed for serious, life-threatening bacterial infections, and MHRA are advising healthcare professionals not to prescribe them, and certainly not to prescribe them for mild to moderate infections unless other antibiotics are considered inappropriate. They have also issued advice to patients to stop taking them if they experienced side effects including muscle pain and peripheral neuropathy.
This cautionary guidance comes on the back of an EU-wide safety review of the drug following a handful of reports of serious side effects usually affecting the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Some of the side effects reported include tendon rupture, depression, fatigue, memory impairment and arthralgia, and some reports have suggested some side effects could potentially be irreversible. The MHRA have said that taking fluoroquinolone by mouth, injections or inhalation can ‘very rarely’ cause these side effects for up to months or years.