From the early 1970s, it has been used in China to treat peptic ulcers, where the mechanism is treatment of the causative Helicobacter pylori infection.[2] In 2002, a journal article suggested its use in treatment of H. pylori infections in children.[3]
Furazolidone has also been used for giardiasis (due to Giardia lamblia), amoebiasis, and shigellosis, also though it is not a first-line treatment.[4]
Since furazolidone is a nitrofuran antibiotic, its use in food animals is currently prohibited by the FDA under the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act, 1994.[6]
Furazolidone is no longer available in the US.[citation needed]
Though an effective antibiotic when all others fail, against extremely drug resistant infections, it has many side effects. including inhibition of monoamine oxidase,[1] and as with other nitrofurans generally, minimum inhibitory concentrations also produce systemic toxicity, resulting in tremors, convulsions, peripheral neuritis, gastrointestinal disturbances, and depression of spermatogenesis. Nitrofurans are recognized by FDA as mutagens/carcinogens, and can no longer be used as of 1991.[8]
^ abTimperio AM, Kuiper HA, Zolla L (February 2003). "Identification of a furazolidone metabolite responsible for the inhibition of amino oxidases". Xenobiotica; the Fate of Foreign Compounds in Biological Systems. 33 (2): 153–167. doi:10.1080/0049825021000038459. PMID12623758. S2CID35868007.
^Xiao SD (2002). "How we discovered in Cina in 1972 that antibiotics cure peptic ulcer.". Helicobacter Pioneers: Firsthand Accounts from the Scientists Who Discovered Helicobacters, 1893-1983. Wiley. pp. 99–104. ISBN978-0-86793-035-1.
^Meng J, Mangat SS, Grudzinski IP, Law FC (1998). "Evidence of 14C-furazolidone metabolite binding to the hepatic DNA of trout". Drug Metabolism and Drug Interactions. 14 (4): 209–219. doi:10.1515/DMDI.1998.14.4.209. PMID10694929. S2CID20792443.
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