Renal Complications Due to Sulfathiazole

Urinary complications due to sulfathiazole have been described in animals1and in man.2At the Cleveland City Hospital, of fifty-four patients with pneumonia treated with sulfathiazole,3thirty-three (61.1 per cent) had crystals of the drug in the urine. In a control series of fifty-six patients treated with sulfapyridine, sixteen (28.6 per cent) had crystals in the urine. This difference is statistically highly significant.4 Sulfathiazole crystals appear in the urine more often than sulfapyridine probably because sulfathiazole is excreted more rapidly and hence a greater amount of the drug has to be administered in order to maintain a satisfactory concentration in the blood. In the cases under consideration an average dose of 52.4 Gm. of sulfathiazole administered over an average period of 5.2 days produced an average blood concentration of 5.8 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters of the free drug in the blood. In the cases treated