Background: Tigecycline is a new broad spectrum antibiotic that is predominantly used for the treatment of severe infections both in critically ill patients admitted to the ICU and in non-ICU patients with less severe clinical conditions.
Objective: To assess differences in the use of tigecycline between ICU patients and non-ICU patients treated with this antibiotics.
Materials and methods: Retrospective, cohort, observational study in which cases were defined as patients who received one or more doses of tigecycline over the first 18 months after approval of the drug in a general hospital. Clinical characteristics, indications, route of administration, clinical response, tolerability and outcome were recorded in the groups of ICU and non-ICU patients. Descriptive data and results of the comparison of both cohorts are presented.
Results: A total of 103 were included in the study, 34(33%) of which received tigecycline during their stay in the ICU. ICU patients compared to non-ICU patients had a higher SAPS II score on admission (39.0 +/- 11.8 vs 26.3 +/- 8.0, p < 0.001) and at the time of starting tigecycline treatment (42.2 +/- 12.6 vs 25.6 +/- 8.2, p < 0.001), were treated with antibiotics for more days (21.4 +/- 30.6 vs 13.6 +/- 30.5 days, p < 0.012) and received a greater number of antibiotic agents concomitantly (85.3% vs 47.8%,p < 0.001), presented a higher selection of emerging bacterial flora (41.2% vs 15.9%, p =0.005), particularly Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20.6%vs 2.9%, p =0.006), higher rate of clinical failure (58.8%vs 21.7%, p < 0.001), longer hospitalization (51.2 +/- 39.4 vs 28.7 +/- 26.3 days, p < 0.001) and higher overall mortality rate (50% vs 14.5%, p < 0.001) and infection-attributed mortality (20.6% vs 7.2%, p =0.047).
Conclusions: The patient that receives tigecycline in the ICU has a higher severity level and worse clinical outcome than the non-ICU patient treated with this antibiotic. It is necessary to optimize the indications of tigecycline in the ICU to improve the clinical results.