Cefuroxime belongs to which antibiotic class?

• A. Macrolides
• B. Cephalosporin
• C. Penicillin
• D. Quinolones

Answer: (B)

Cefuroxime is a cephalosporin, a member of the beta-lactam antibiotic family defined by a beta-lactam ring fused to a dihydrothiazine ring. This structural class distinction sets it apart from penicillins, which have a thiazolidine ring, even though both classes disrupt bacterial cell wall synthesis by binding penicillin-binding proteins. Macrolides and quinolones work by entirely different mechanisms—macrolides inhibit protein synthesis at the 50S ribosomal subunit, and quinolones inhibit DNA gyrase/topoisomerase—so they aren’t cefuroxime. Understanding this helps explain why cefuroxime is classified as a cephalosporin: it belongs to that distinct beta-lactam family with its own characteristic spectrum and generation-based activity.