Intravenous-only or Intravenous Transitioned to Oral Antimicrobials for Enterobacteriaceae-Associated Bacteremic Urinary Tract Infection.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize antibiotic regimens utilized for bacteremic Enterobacteriaceae urinary tract infections and assess treatment failure associated with intravenous-only compared to intravenous transitioned to oral antibiotic treatment.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort.

SETTINGS: Tertiary care academic medical center.

PATIENTS: 241 adult patients hospitalized between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2015, with positive blood and urine cultures with the same Enterobacteriaceae pathogen.

MAIN RESULTS: Hospital days on antibiotics as well as length of stay were less in the group treated with any oral antibiotics (intravenous/oral, median 5 [IQR 3-7] days vs intravenous-only antibiotics 6 [4-10] days, p<0.001; length of stay for intravenous/oral 4.6 [3.1-7.8] days vs intravenous-only 7.1 [4.0-17.5] days, p<0.001). No statistically significant difference was found in the composite outcome of treatment failure in patients who received intravenous-only antibiotics versus intravenous/oral antibiotics for the treatment of bacteremic urinary tract infections (intravenous-only 3.8% [95% CI: 1.0-9.4%] failure; intravenous/oral 8.2% [95% CI: 4.1-14.1%] failure; p=0.19).

CONCLUSIONS: Intravenous transitioned to oral treatment (intravenous/oral) was associated with a shorter length of stay and fewer hospital antibiotic days compared with intravenous-only therapy. Transitioning from intravenous to oral antibiotic therapy is a viable treatment option to consider for patients with bacteremic Enterobacteriaceae urinary tract infection.