Ceftriaxone treatment of complicated urinary tract infections as a risk factor for enterococcal re-infection and prolonged hospitalization: A 6-year retrospective study.

A frequent complication during hospital stay of patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs) is a re-infection of the urinary tract after the initial improvement. In this study, we investigated the impact of two empirical antibiotic therapies on the outcomes of complicated bacterial UTIs. We retrospectively evaluated 325 adult patients hospitalized during 6 years period with a diagnosis of complicated bacterial UTIs. The patients were classified into two groups according to the antibiotic therapy: ceftriaxone- and co-amoxiclav+gentamicin-treated group. Clinical data were collected from the patient records into a designed form. Output data included information on the treatment outcome, length of stay (LOS), development of complications, and cause of re-infections. The patients treated with ceftriaxone had significantly longer LOS (p = 0.012), as well as higher occurrence of complications (p = 0.023) and urinary tract re-infections (p < 0.001), compared to co-amoxiclav+gentamicin-treated group. No significant difference was observed in the treatment outcome between the two groups (p = 0.137). The most common complication in both investigated groups were re-infections of the urinary tract, and Enterococcus spp. was detected as the cause of re-infections only in patients from ceftriaxone-treated group (40/69 patients). Out of the 40 ceftriaxone-treated patients with enterococcal urinary tract re-infections, 35 patients had one or more chronic diseases and 29 patients had urinary catheter inserted. Ceftriaxone therapy should be considered carefully in patients with complicated UTIs due to the possibility of enterococcal re-infection and consequent prolonged hospital stay.