New drug is found effective for treating complicated urinary tract infections: Researchers involved in Rutgers-led clinical trial learn a combination of treatments is especially effective against drug-resistant cases

An international study led by a Rutgers scientist comparing new and older treatments against complicated urinary tract infections has found a new drug combination to be more effective, especially against stubborn, drug-resistant infections.

Describing the results in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers in the ALLIUM Phase 3 clinical trial showed that a combination of the drugs cefepime and enmetazobactam was more effective in treating both complicated urinary tract infections and acute pyelonephritis (AP), a bacterial infection causing kidney inflammation, than a standard treatment combining piperacillin and tazobactam. Urinary tract infections are considered complicated when they are associated with risk factors — including fevers, sepsis, urinary obstruction or catheters — that increase the danger of failing antibiotic therapy.

“This new antibiotic was superior to the standard-of-care therapy,” said Keith Kaye, chief of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases and

a professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

“It represents an exciting option for treatment,” said Kaye, the principal investigator of the study and lead author on the publication.

Kaye added this drug combination also fights an often-dangerous category of bacterial illnesses caused by pathogens known as extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) infections, named for an enzyme the bacteria produce. ESBL-producing bacteria can’t be killed effectively by many of the antibiotics conventionally used to treat infections, such as penicillins and cephalosporins.

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