Reviewed by Jesse Sutton, PharmD; Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Healthcare System
Wiggers and colleagues performed a retrospective cohort study to compare the impact of adequate versus inadequate empiric antimicrobials on time to clinical cure and mortality in patients hospitalized with bacteremic urinary tract infection. There was no association between adequate empiric antibiotics and shorter time to clinical cure or mortality. While the study is not without limitations, the results suggest it may be appropriate to accept a higher risk threshold when choosing to empirically cover resistant organisms for patients hospitalized with urinary tract infection especially in the absence of critical illness.
Reference:
Wiggers JB, Sehgal P, Pinto R, MacFadden D, Daneman N. The association of adequate empirical treatment and time to recovery from bacteraemic urinary tract infections: a retrospective cohort study. Clinical Microbiology and Infection 2019;25(10):1253-1258. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30844435