Molecular β-lactamase characterization of Gram-negative pathogens recovered from patients enrolled in the ceftazidime-avibactam phase 3 trials (RECAPTURE 1 and 2) for complicated urinary tract infections: Efficacies analysed against susceptible and resistant subsets.

This study characterized the β-lactamase content of baseline pathogens recovered from patients with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI), including acute pyelonephritis, who were enrolled in two phase 3 clinical trials of ceftazidime-avibactam (RECAPTURE 1 and 2), and correlated the clinical efficacy of ceftazidime-avibactam and the comparator doripenem according to resistance mechanisms. A total of 26.2% (93/355) ceftazidime-avibactam and 26.8% (101/377) doripenem patients had baseline isolates that met the MIC screening criteria. The majority of Enterobacteriaceae (87.5%; 154/176) carried blaCTX-M. This pattern was mainly observed in Escherichia coli (96.8%; 92/95) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (96.0%; 48/50), whereas most Proteus mirabilis (80.0%; 8/10) carried plasmid AmpC genes. Two K. pneumoniae and 1 Klebsiella oxytoca carried blaOXA-48 and 1 K. pneumoniae carried blaNDM-1. Five (13/35; 37.1%) Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates were screened, and 2 carbapenemase producers (IMP-18 and VIM-2) were detected. Among patients enrolled in the ceftazidime-avibactam arm who were infected by MIC screen-positive Enterobacteriaceae, clinical cure occurred in 85.7-95.5%, regardless of β-lactamase content; the respective rate in the doripenem arm was 82.1-92.5%. A total of 75.0% in the ceftazidime-avibactam arm and 100.0% in the doripenem arm of patients infected by P. aeruginosa with MIC screen-positive criteria were clinically cured. Ceftazidime-avibactam efficacy was comparable to doripenem efficacy for treating cUTI caused by uropathogens producing extended-spectrum and/or AmpC β-lactamases.