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New antibiotic ‘effective against drug-resistant UTIs’ in clinical trial

A new antibiotic is effective at treating complicated multidrug-resistant urinary tract infections, researchers have claimed.

New clinical trial results for the antibiotic, named cefiderocol, found that it was more effective at destroying pathogens, when compared to the standard antibiotic currently used.

This research forms part of the US’s drive to fast-track antibiotic development, and will be used to support a new drug application to the US Food and Drug Administration.

In the study, researchers treated 252 patients with multidrug-resistant complicated UTIs – across 67 hospitals in 15 countries – with cefiderocol, between February 2015 and August 2016.

These were compared to 119 patients who received the current standard of care treatment imipenem-cilastatin, over the same period.

All patients recieved one hour intravenous infusions of one of the drugs, three times daily, every eight hours for seven to 14 days.

The paper, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found that the patients treated with cefiderocol had a higher and more sustained level of pathogen eradication, as well as similar clinical outcomes to those treated with imipenem-cilastatin.

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The researchers saw that cefiderocol was as effective as imipenem-cilastatin in a combined evaluation of the clinical and microbiological outcomes with efficacy rates of 73% and 55% respectively, one week after the treatment had stopped.

The paper said: ‘Intravenous infusion of cefiderocol three times daily was non-inferior compared with imipenem-cilastatin for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infection in people with multidrug-resistant gram-negative infections.

‘The results of this study will provide the basis for submission of a new drug application to the US Food and Drug Administration.’

Dr Simon Portsmouth, the lead researcher at drug developer Shionogi, explained: ‘Cefiderocol acts as a trojan horse. The drug uses a novel mechanism of cell entry that takes advantage of the bacteria’s need for iron to survive.’

He said: ‘Cefiderocol was found to be both safe and tolerable in a population of older patients who were very ill with complex comorbid conditions and a wide range of multidrug-resistant pathogens.

‘Our results support cefiderocol as a novel approach that might be used to overcome gram-negative resistance.’

This comes as Public Health England relaunched its campaign to stop patients pressuring GPs for antibiotics, in an attempt to stem the rise of antibiotic resistance. 


          

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