• Christina Routsi, Aikaterini Gkoufa, Kostoula Arvaniti, Stelios Kokkoris, Alexandros Tourtoglou, Vassiliki Theodorou, Anna Vemvetsou, Georgios Kassianidis, Athena Amerikanou, Elisabeth Paramythiotou, Efstathia Potamianou, Kyriakos Ntorlis, Angeliki Kanavou, Georgios Nakos, Eleftheria Hassou, Helen Antoniadou, Ilias Karaiskos, Athanasios Prekates, Apostolos Armaganidis, Ioannis Pnevmatikos, Miltiades Kyprianou, Spyros Zakynthinos, Garyfallia Poulakou, and Helen Giamarellou.
• 1st Department of Intensive Care, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 'Evangelismos' Hospital, Athens, Greece.
• J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 2020 Dec 1; 75 (12): 3665-3674.

BackgroundDe-escalation of empirical antimicrobial therapy, a key component of antibiotic stewardship, is considered difficult in ICUs with high rates of antimicrobial resistance.ObjectivesTo assess the feasibility and the impact of antimicrobial de-escalation in ICUs with high rates of antimicrobial resistance.MethodsMulticentre, prospective, observational study in septic patients with documented infections. Patients in whom de-escalation was applied were compared with patients without de-escalation by the use of a propensity score matching by SOFA score on the day of de-escalation initiation.ResultsA total of 262 patients (mean age 62.2 ± 15.1 years) were included. Antibiotic-resistant pathogens comprised 62.9%, classified as MDR (12.5%), extensively drug-resistant (49%) and pandrug-resistant (1.2%). In 97 (37%) patients de-escalation was judged not feasible in view of the antibiotic susceptibility results. Of the remaining 165 patients, judged as patients with de-escalation possibility, de-escalation was applied in 60 (22.9%). These were matched to an equal number of patients without de-escalation. In this subset of 120 patients, de-escalation compared with no de-escalation was associated with lower all-cause 28 day mortality (13.3% versus 36.7%, OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.11-0.66, P = 0.006); ICU and hospital mortality were also lower. De-escalation was associated with a subsequent collateral decrease in the SOFA score. Cox multivariate regression analysis revealed de-escalation as a significant factor for 28 day survival (HR 0.31, 95% CI 0.14-0.70, P = 0.005).ConclusionsIn ICUs with high levels of antimicrobial resistance, feasibility of antimicrobial de-escalation was limited because of the multi-resistant pathogens isolated. However, when de-escalation was feasible and applied, it was associated with lower mortality.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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