Sparfloxacin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Sparfloxacin is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Available as
- Tablet
- Sold as
- Zagam
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
Every sparfloxacin product we track (1)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
Only one: Zagam.
Sparfloxacin and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for sparfloxacin: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadNo information is available on the use of sparfloxacin during breastfeeding. Fluoroquinolones have traditionally not been used in infants because of concern about adverse effects on the infants' developing joints. However, recent studies indicate little risk. The calcium in milk might prevent absorption of the small amounts of fluoroquinolones in milk. but insufficient data exist to prove or disprove this assertion. Use of sparfloxacin is acceptable in nursing mothers with monitoring of the infant for possible effects on the gastrointestinal flora, such as diarrhea or candidiasis (thrush, diaper rash). However, it is preferable to use an alternate drug for which safety information is available.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised July 15, 2024. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about sparfloxacin
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 48 reports naming sparfloxacin, and the FDA flagged 94% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- acute myocardial infarction5 reports
- alanine aminotransferase increased5 reports
- aspartate aminotransferase increased5 reports
- asthenia5 reports
- depression5 reports
- drug resistance5 reports
- hyperlipidaemia5 reports
- inappropriate schedule of product administration5 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean sparfloxacin caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 26, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take sparfloxacin with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run sparfloxacin against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What forms does sparfloxacin come in?
Across the brands we track, sparfloxacin is currently marketed as tablet, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic sparfloxacin?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled sparfloxacin product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Sparfloxacin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/sparfloxacin
- MLA
- “Sparfloxacin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/sparfloxacin.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for sparfloxacin on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.