Quinolones are a class of broad-spectrum antibiotics with excellent oral bioavailability and can be used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections. They act on bacterial type II topoisomerases, DNA gyrase, and topoisomerase IV, inhibiting their function and converting them into toxic enzymes that produce permanent double-stranded breaks in the bacterial chromosome. FDA-approved indications for certain quinolones in adults include treatment of urinary tract infections, pyelonephritis, sexually transmitted infections, prostatitis, gastrointestinal and intraabdominal infections, skin and soft tissue infections, community-acquired and nosocomial pneumonia, and bone and joint infections. Further studies are currently underway to extend the use of quinolones into other therapeutic fields, such as cancer treatment and as an anti-protozoan agent. The use of quinolones may result in higher rates of clostridium difficile infection compared to other antibiotics. In multiple animal studies, quinolones have demonstrated to accumulate in the immature articular cartilage of juvenile animals, leading to the development of arthropathies and damage to the cartilage of weight-bearing joints. There are concerns regarding the potential of permanent damage to growing cartilage in human children, but there are only limited safety studies on quinolone use in pediatric patients. In pregnant women, there are theoretical concerns that the quinolones could potentially inhibit DNA synthesis in the growing fetus, leading to fetal organ agenesis, mutagenesis, and carcinogenesis.