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Carbapenem-resistant sepsis risk factors vary significantly
NEW ORLEANS - When it comes to sepsis, it's the risk factors that are important.
SAN DIEGO – Among patients with serious infections due to Enterobacteriaceae, delayed appropriate therapy has a stronger association with outcomes, relative to presence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, according to an analysis of national hospital data.
“We need to reconsider how we approach patients with serious Gram-negative infections,” lead study author Thomas Lodise, PharmD, PhD, said at an annual scientific meeting on infectious diseases. “We kind of take this wait-and-see approach in infectious diseases; we wait a couple of days, then we get aggressive. You would never do this in oncology. I don’t know how many more studies we need to show that early therapy matters. We talk about antibiotic stewardship. One of the fundamental pillars of stewardship is getting it right the first time, and we fail to do this in the majority of patients with serious Gram-negative infections.”
Doug Brunk/Frontline Medical News
Dr. Thomas Lodise
At the combined annual meetings of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, he noted that delayed appropriate therapy is associated with increased rates of clinical failure and mortality, longer lengths of stay, longer durations of antibiotic treatment, and greater in-hospital costs. “Similarly, patients with infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) have poorer outcomes, such as increased risk of mortality or of being discharged to a long-term care facility, compared with patients with infections caused by carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacteriaceae isolates,” said Dr. Lodise of the Albany (N.Y.) College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “Although CRE and delayed appropriate therapy have both been associated with worse outcomes, the impact of each of these factors on clinical and economic outcomes is not well understood.”
In an effort to assess the independent and combined impact of CRE and delayed appropriate therapy on clinical and economic outcomes among hospitalized U.S. patients with serious infections due to Enterobacteriaceae, Dr. Lodise and his associates drew from the Premier Hospital Database, which includes information for about 500 acute-care hospitals in the United States, including the 150 hospitals that provided admission records and microbiological data assessed in the current analysis.
The researchers evaluated adults hospitalized between July 2011 and September 2014. The index date was defined as the earliest culture positive for at least one Gram-negative bacteria of interest, and patients were stratified based on whether the pathogen was CRE or non-CRE. Appropriate therapy was defined as receipt of an antibiotic regimen with microbiological activity against all pathogens identified within the index culture on the index date or within the subsequent 2-day period. All subsequent receipt of such therapy was defined as delayed appropriate therapy.
In all, 50,069 patients with a mean age of 66 years were included in the study. Of these, 514 (1%) harbored infections caused by CRE, and 49,555 (99%) had infections caused by a pathogen other than CRE. Multivariate adjusted analysis revealed significant differences between the CRE group and the non-CRE group in duration of antibiotic therapy (a mean of 8.5 days vs. 7.5 days, respectively); length of stay (a mean of 8.4 days vs. 7.6 days), and in-hospital cost (a mean of $19,816 vs. a mean of $15,165; P less than .01 for all associations). In addition, CRE patients were less likely to be discharged home (odds ratio [OR], .3) and more likely to die in the hospital or be discharged to hospice (OR, 2.2).
When outcomes of patients infections due to Enterobacteriaceae species were stratified by timing of appropriate therapy (timely vs. delayed) and CRE status (CRE vs. non-CRE), without exception the burden of serious infections was least among patients with infections due to non-CRE who received timely appropriate therapy, and greatest among patients with infections due to CRE in whom appropriate therapy was delayed. A gradient effect was observed across strata, and weighted towards timing of receipt of initial therapy. For example, the mean LOS post index culture date rank was lowest among non-CRE patients who received timely appropriate therapy (a mean of 5 days) and greatest among patients infected with CRE who received delayed appropriate therapy (a mean of 8.8 days). Similarly, mean in-hospital costs post index culture date rank was lowest among non-CRE patients who received timely appropriate therapy (a mean of $9,875) and greatest among patients infected with CRE who received delayed appropriate therapy (a mean of $25,506).
“This study demonstrates the importance of early identification of patients at risk for delayed appropriate therapy, through the use of clinical criteria for risk stratification or rapid diagnostic tools,” Dr. Lodise concluded. “The findings also highlight the need to shift current treatment practices away from antibiotic escalation strategies that contribute to delayed appropriate therapy and toward early aggressive, appropriate therapy in patients at risk for CRE infection.”
Allergan funded the study. Dr. Lodise disclosed that he has received consulting fees or honoraria from Allergan. He has also been a consultant for Merck, Achaogen, Zavante, and The Medicines Company.