Pace MC, Corrente A, Passavanti MB, Sansone P, Petrou S, Leone S, Fiore M. Burden of severe infections due to carbapenem-resistant pathogens in intensive care unit. World J Clin Cases 2023; 11(13): 2874-2889 [PMID: 37215420 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i13.2874]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Marco Fiore, MD, Doctor, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Piazza Luigi Miraglia, 2, Naples 80138, Italy. marco.fiore@unicampania.it
Research Domain of This Article
Critical Care Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. May 6, 2023; 11(13): 2874-2889 Published online May 6, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i13.2874
Burden of severe infections due to carbapenem-resistant pathogens in intensive care unit
Maria Caterina Pace, Antonio Corrente, Maria Beatrice Passavanti, Pasquale Sansone, Stephen Petrou, Sebastiano Leone, Marco Fiore
Maria Caterina Pace, Antonio Corrente, Maria Beatrice Passavanti, Pasquale Sansone, Marco Fiore, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Naples 80138, Italy
Stephen Petrou, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, United States
Sebastiano Leone, Division of Infectious Diseases, “San Giuseppe Moscati” Hospital, Avellino 83100, Italy
Author contributions: Corrente A and Marco F designed the study and performed the research; Pace MC, Passavanti MB, Sansone P and Leone S supervised the manuscript; Petrou S provided critical reviews and revised the Language; Corrente A and Fiore M wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marco Fiore, MD, Doctor, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Piazza Luigi Miraglia, 2, Naples 80138, Italy. marco.fiore@unicampania.it
Received: December 29, 2022 Peer-review started: December 29, 2022 First decision: January 17, 2023 Revised: February 17, 2023 Accepted: April 4, 2023 Article in press: April 4, 2023 Published online: May 6, 2023
Abstract
Intensive care units (ICU) for various reasons, including the increasing age of admitted patients, comorbidities, and increasingly complex surgical procedures (e.g., transplants), have become "the epicenter" of nosocomial infections, these are characterized by the presence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) as the cause of infection. Therefore, the perfect match of fragile patients and MDROs, as the cause of infection, makes ICU mortality very high. Furthermore, carbapenems were considered for years as last-resort antibiotics for the treatment of infections caused by MDROs; unfortunately, nowadays carbapenem resistance, mainly among Gram-negative pathogens, is a matter of the highest concern for worldwide public health. This comprehensive review aims to outline the problem from the intensivist's perspective, focusing on the new definition and epidemiology of the most common carbapenem-resistant MDROs (Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacterales) to emphasize the importance of the problem that must be permeating clinicians dealing with these diseases.
Core Tip: Intensive care units for various reasons have become "the epicenter" of nosocomial infections due to multidrug-resistant organisms: a perfect combination of critically ill patients and multidrug-resistant organisms, as the cause of infection, makes these patients' mortality very high. This comprehensive review aims to outline the problem from the clinician's perspective, focusing on the new definition and epidemiology of the most common multidrug-resistant organisms that are Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacterales to emphasize the importance of the problem.
