Among adults in the intensive care unit with sepsis or septic shock, the use of prolonged β-lactam antibiotic infusions is associated with a lower risk of 90-day mortality compared with intermittent infusions, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Study authors conducted a systematic literature review to determine whether prolonged β-lactam antibiotic infusions versus intermittent infusions are associated with a reduced risk of death in critically ill adults with sepsis or septic shock. The researchers identified 18 eligible randomized clinical trials (9,108 critically ill adults). For prolonged infusions of β-lactam antibiotics, the pooled estimated risk ratio (RR) for all-cause, 90-day mortality was 0.86 (I2=21.5%; high certainty), compared with intermittent infusions. There was a 99.1 percent posterior probability that prolonged infusions were associated with lower 90-day mortality. Additionally, prolonged infusion of β-lactam antibiotics was associated with a lower risk of intensive care unit mortality (RR, 0.84; high certainty) and increased clinical cure (RR, 1.16; moderate certainty).
