• Carmen Peña, Cristina Suarez, Alain Ocampo-Sosa, Javier Murillas, Benito Almirante, Virginia Pomar, Manuela Aguilar, Ana Granados, Esther Calbo, Jesús Rodríguez-Baño, Fernando Rodríguez, Fe Tubau, Antonio Oliver, Luis Martínez-Martínez, and Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI).
• Servicio de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge-IDIBELL, Barcelona. cpena@bellvitgehospital.cat
• Clin. Infect. Dis. 2013 Jul 1; 57 (2): 208-16.

BackgroundEmpirical combination therapy is recommended for patients with known or suspected Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infection as a means to decrease the likelihood of administering inadequate antimicrobial treatment, to prevent the emergence of resistance, and to achieve a possible additive or even synergistic effect.MethodsWe performed a post hoc analysis of patients with PA bloodstream infections from a published prospective cohort. Mortality was compared in patients treated with adequate empirical and definitive combination therapy (AECT, ADCT), and adequate empirical and definitive single-drug therapy (AESD, ADSD). Confounding was controlled by Cox regression analysis, and a propensity score for receiving AECT or ADCT was also used.ResultsThe final cohort comprised 593 patients with a single episode of PA bacteremia. The 30-day mortality was 30% (176 patients); 76 patients (13%) died during the first 48 hours. The unadjusted probabilities of survival until day 30 were 69.4% (95% confidence interval [CI], 59.1-81.6) for the patients receiving AECT, 73.5% (95% CI, 68.4%-79.0%) for the AESD group, and 66.7% (95% CI, 61.2%-72.7%) for patients who received inadequate empirical therapy (P = .17, log-rank test). After adjustment for confounders, the AESD group (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR], 1.17; 95% CI, .70-1.96; P = .54) and patients who received ADSD (AHR, 1.34; 95% CI, .73-2.47; P = .35) showed no association with 30-day mortality compared with the AECT and ADCT groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggests that treatment with combination antimicrobial therapy did not reduce the mortality risk compared with single-drug therapy in PA bloodstream infections.

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