1578 - Treatments for complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) caused by multidrug resistant (MDR) Gram-negative (GN) pathogens- a systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA)

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a major and growing threat to global public health. Cefiderocol (CFDC) is a new siderophore-cephalosporin with a wide activity spectrum covering all aerobic GN pathogens including all WHO critical priority pathogens, that was recently approved by FDA for the treatment of GN cUTI in susceptible organisms. We aim to understand the relative efficacy and safety of current treatment options for cUTI caused by MDR GN pathogens.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review to identify all relevant trials that investigated the efficacy and safety of antimicrobial regimens, for the treatment of GN pathogens in cUTI. Outcomes of interest included clinical cure and microbiological eradication (ME) at time of cure (TOC) and sustained follow up (SFU), and safety. Evidence networks were constructed using data for outcomes of interest and analyses were conducted in a frequentist framework using NMA methods outlined by the NICE decision support unit using the netmeta package in R.

Results: A total of 5 studies, 6 interventions and 2,349 randomised patients were included in the final analysis. Interventions included CFDC, imipenem-cilastatin (IPM-CIL), ceftazidime-avibactam (CAZ/AVI), doripenem (DOR), levofloxacin and ceftolozane-tazobactam (CEF/TAZ). Trials included predominantly Enterobacterales, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and very few Acinetobacter baumannii. The patient population presented some clinical differences across trials, which were not adjusted for the NMA. Overall, there were numerical differences (especially in endpoints at SFU favouring CFDC), but all treatments showed similar efficacy and safety, with exception of higher ME rate at TOC for CFDC vs IPM, Table 1, also observed at SFU, consistent with the data from the individual clinical trial.
 Table 1- Results for microbiological eradicationTable 1- Results for microbiological eradication


Conclusion: This NMA, showed superiority of CFDC vs IPM-CIL in ME at TOC and SFU and similar efficacy and safety vs all other comparators, with numeric differences favouring CFDC for outcomes at SFU. These traditional methodologies for NMA, are only valid within a similar pathogens pool and population across the trials, and may not reflect the full value of breadth of coverage that new therapeutic options bring for the treatment of MDR GN pathogens.