Activity of imipenem/relebactam against MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Europe: SMART 2015-17.

OBJECTIVES: Relebactam is a diazabicyclooctane non-β-lactam inhibitor of Ambler class A and C β-lactamases that is in clinical development in combination with imipenem/cilastatin. The current study evaluated the in vitro activity of imipenem/relebactam against 5447 isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa submitted to the SMART global surveillance programme in 2015-17 by 67 clinical laboratories in 22 European countries.

METHODS: MICs were determined using the CLSI broth microdilution reference method (Eleventh Edition: M07, 2018). Relebactam was tested at a fixed concentration of 4 mg/L in combination with doubling dilutions of imipenem. MICs were interpreted using EUCAST clinical breakpoints (version 8.1); imipenem breakpoints were applied to imipenem/relebactam.

RESULTS: Rates of susceptibility to imipenem and imipenem/relebactam (MIC ≤4 mg/L) were 69.4% and 92.4%, respectively, for all isolates of P. aeruginosa. Over one-third of all isolates (34.9%, 1902/5447) were MDR; lower respiratory tract isolates (38.3%, 1327/3461) were more frequently MDR than were intraabdominal (28.5%, 355/1245) or urinary tract (29.7%, 212/714) isolates. Of all MDR isolates, 78.2% were susceptible to imipenem/relebactam, a rate that was 50-77 percentage points higher than the rate of susceptibility to imipenem or any other β-lactam tested; rates of susceptibility to imipenem/relebactam were similar for MDR isolates from lower respiratory tract (77.8% susceptible), intraabdominal (80.3%) and urinary tract (76.4%) infections. Overall, relebactam restored imipenem susceptibility to 75.2% (1254/1668) of imipenem-non-susceptible isolates of P. aeruginosa and to 69.6% (947/1361) of imipenem-non-susceptible isolates with an MDR phenotype.

CONCLUSIONS: Relebactam restored in vitro susceptibility to imipenem for most imipenem-non-susceptible and MDR clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa from European patients.