ELF concentrations of ceftriaxone in children with community-acquired pneumonia.

Ceftriaxone is widely used in children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Currently, there is no available data regarding epithelial lining fluid (ELF) concentrations of ceftriaxone in children. Thus, Blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) samples were collected by using an opportunistic sampling design, then we determined plasma and ELF concentrations in 22 children (0.5 - 11.7 years), with a total of 36 plasma and 22 ELF samples available for analysis. Ceftriaxone plasma and ELF concentrations ranged from 1.07 to 138.71 mg/L, and from 0.61 to 26.69 mg/L, respectively. Ceftriaxone concentration in ELF was 12.18 ± 5.15 (mean ± SD) times higher than that in plasma, ranging from 1.29 to 20.44.