This study identified the routes of elimination of ciprofloxacin in two groups of five subjects each: one of healthy volunteers; the other of patients with severe renal failure having mean creatinine clearance of 12 ml/min (range, 8-16 ml/min). Each subject received one dose of 200 mg ciprofloxacin infused intravenously (IV) over 30 min. In an effort to recover the total drug administered, all urine and feces were collected for 7 days following dosing. Blood samples were drawn at set intervals. Serum, urine, and feces were assayed for ciprofloxacin and metabolites by high-pressure liquid chromatography. The ciprofloxacin elimination half-life was 3.9 +/- 0.4 hr in the healthy volunteers and 11.2 +/- 2.5 hr in the patients with severe renal failure. The total 7-day recovery of ciprofloxacin and its metabolites in urine and feces ranged from 74.0% to 114.7% of the dose (mean, 96.3 +/- 14.1%) in normal subjects and from 48.5% to 109.1% (mean, 88.1 +/- 20.9%) in patients. The dose of ciprofloxacin recovered in urine was 65.3 +/- 10.7% in healthy subjects and 19.0 +/- 15.9% in impaired patients (reduction factor, 3.4). In contrast, the dose recovered in feces was 11.4 +/- 2.6% in the group of normal subjects and 37.2 +/- 12.5% in the group of patients with impaired renal function in a 3.3-fold increase.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)