Objectives: To provide a comprehensive assessment of the impact of carbapenem resistance on mortality among patients infected with Enterobacteriaceae and to explore the source of heterogeneity across studies.
Design: This systematic review was conducted following the guidelines of Cochrane Guidance and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.
Data sources: We conducted a systematic literature search of the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases to identify relevant studies published between 1 January 1994 and 30 August 2020.
Eligibility criteria: We included primary observational studies published in English that reported the mortality outcomes for hospitalised patients with confirmed infections due to carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacteriaceae (CSE). Studies with no comparison group or with a comparison group of patients infected with unconfirmed CSE were excluded.
Data extraction and synthesis: Data extraction and assessment of risk bias were conducted independently by two reviewers. The pooled relative risk and risk difference were calculated as effect measures with 95% CIs using a random effects model. The heterogeneity across studies was assessed by Q-statistic and I2 measures.
Results: Of 10 304 studies initially identified, 50 studies were included in the meta-analyses. The results of the meta-analyses showed that carbapenem resistance has a significant positive effect on the probability of death for patients infected with Enterobacteriaceae for any type of mortality outcome. The results of the stratified analysis and meta-regression suggested that the effect of carbapenem resistance on the risk of death varied by infection type, sample size and year of publication.
Conclusions: Our results suggested that patients with CRE infection still face a greater risk of death than patients with CSE infection do, and an urgent need to develop new antibiotics and appropriate treatments to reduce the risk of death.
Prospero registration number: CRD42020176808.
Keywords: epidemiology; health policy; public health.
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