1. Introduction
Acinetobacter baumannii (
A. baumannii) is a gram-negative, lactose non-fermenting organism, and due to its ability to survive in hospital environments, it is increasingly becoming a major pathogen of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) worldwide. With the emergence of HAI,
A. baumannii has become an important cause of mortality in critically ill patients.
A. baumannii is now largely regarded as one of the most troublesome pathogens and is responsible for several types of HAI including skin and soft tissue infections and invasive infections such as pneumonia, osteomyelitis, and bacteremia [
1]. Moreover, A. baumannii causes community-acquired infections, although to a lesser extent [
2,
3]. Reports about multidrug resistant (MDR)
A. baumannii are constantly increasing, especially in intensive care units (ICUs), and it is related to high attributable mortality in critically ill patients [
4]. The vast majority of patients use a large number of combined broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents, which makes their immunity weaker and easier access to hospital infection [
5]. MDR
A. baumannii-caused infections are difficult to diagnose and treat, leading to increased mortality and prolonged hospital stays [
2,
3]. Many studies have linked chronic comorbid conditions, bedridden status, venous catheterization, ICU stay, infections with MDR phenotypes, concurrent fungal infection, and age to
A. baumannii infection-related mortality [
6,
7]. Muntean
et al. [8] have reported that the development of
A. baumannii infection in patients admitted to the ICU, previous antibiotic therapy at admission, blood transfusion, and ulcer pressure are risk factors. Although the findings from different studies are not consistent, understanding the risk factors for MDR
A. baumannii infections in patients admitted to the ICU is important to reduce the incidence and spread of such infections in the ICU. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the characteristics and outcomes of patients with infections caused by multidrug resistant
A. baumannii in a tertiary-care teaching hospital and to determine the risk factors for in-hospital mortality.
3. Results
A total of 196 isolates were collected: 60 (30.6%) from women and 136 (69.4%) from men, with a mean age of 61.7 ± 16.6 (range, 52–74) years. The mean length of hospital stay was 25.24 ± 30 (IQR, 7–34) days, and the mean length of ICU stay was 19 ± 46 (IQR, 3–20) days. The highest number of A. baumannii strains were isolated from patients hospitalized in ICU (43.4%, n = 85), followed by surgical wards (31.1%, n = 61) and medical wards (25.5%, n = 50). More than three-fourths (76.5%, n = 150) of the patients had at least one comorbid disease. Cardiac diseases accounted for 62.2% (n = 122) of all comorbid diseases; cancer, for 27.5% (n = 54); type 2 diabetes mellitus, for 18.0% (n = 35); and type 1 diabetes mellitus, for 2.1% (n = 4).
Of the 196 episodes of infection, respiratory infections caused by A. baumannii made up 66.3% (n = 130); skin and soft tissue infections plus surgical wound infections, 8.7% (n = 17); bacteremia, 6.6% (n = 13); gastrointestinal tract infections, 5.6% (n = 11); urinary tract infections, 4.1% (n = 8); and infections of other locations, 1.0% (n = 2). As much as 7.7% (n = 15) of cases were considered contamination.
Along with A. baumannii, one co-pathogen was found in 94 (47.9%) patients and two or more co-pathogens, in 102 (52.0%) patients. In cases of co-infection, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated most often with A. baumannii.
Before the diagnosis of A. baumannii infection, patients were treated with 2 antibacterial drugs on average (SD, 1; range, 0–5). Cephalosporins were the most frequently prescribed drugs (n = 147, 75.0%) followed by penicillin + BLI (n = 112, 57.1%), carbapenems (n = 76, 38.8%), antifungals (n = 33, 16.8%), and quinolones (n = 25, 12.8%). Majority of the patients (81.6%, n = 160) were subjected to mechanical ventilation lasting for 7 days on average (SD, 7; range, 1–51).
A. baumannii strains producing three types of
β-lactamases were more frequently isolated from females than males (77.8% vs. 22.2%,
p = 0.006). Infections caused by
A. baumannii strains producing two types of
β-lactamases were significantly more often treated with combination therapy than infections caused by strains producing one type of
β-lactamase (78.9% vs. 60.0%, p = 0.019). No significant associations were found between the type and number of
β-lactamases with patients’ characteristics such as age, cause of hospitalization mechanical ventilation, length of stay before
A. baumannii infection, markers of inflammation, chronic diseases and antibiotic treatment before infection (
Table 1).
Patients with
A. baumannii strains producing two different types of
β-lactamases (AmpC plus KPC, AmpC plus ESBL, or ESBL plus KPC) stayed significantly shorter at the ICU compared to patients with
A. baumannii strains not producing
β-lactamases (median of 9, IQR 2–18, vs. median of 26, IQR 7–38,
p = 0.022) (
Figure 1).
χ2 = 9.613, df = 3, p = 0.022 by the Kruskal-Wallis test (Dunn post hoc test for pair-wise comparison: β-lactamase non-producing strains vs. strains producing two types of β-lactamases, p = 0.016).
Error bars indicate the range of distribution; the box, the interquartile range; the horizontal line, median value; the asterisks and circles, outliers.
Despite there were no significant associations between the type of antibacterial treatment and
A. baumannii strains producing different types of
β-lactamases before the detection of
A. baumannii infection (
p > 0.05) (
Table 1), possible associations were evaluated after the detection of
A. baumannii infection.
Of the 196 patients with A. baumannii infection, 73 received combination therapy with colistin and BLI (37.2%), 28 received monotherapy with BL (14.3%), 16 continued empirical treatment (8.2%), 16 received combination therapy with colistin and carbapenems (8.2%), and other combinations were administered in 12 patients (6.1%). Death occurred in 34 patients (17.3%) before treatment could be administered, and 17 cases (8.7%) of A. baumannii infection were considered as colonization. Monotherapy was administered in 23.5% of patients to treat A. baumannii infection and combination therapy, in 59.2%.
Patients with infections caused by
A. baumannii producing one type of
β-lactamase were significantly more frequently treated with the combination of colistin and carbapenem as well as other combinations than those with infections caused by
A. baumannii producing two types of
β-lactamases (57.1% and 63.6% vs. 35.7% and 36.4%, p = 0.015 and p = 0.017, respectively). The combination of colistin with BLI was administered significantly more frequently to treat infections caused by
A. baumannii producing two types of
β-lactamases than infections caused by
A. baumannii producing one type of
β-lactamase (83.8% vs. 11.8%, p < 0.001). The detailed information is shown in
Table 2.
Of the 196 patients diagnosed with
A. baumannii infection, 58.7% (n = 115) died and 41.3% (n = 81) survived. Demographical and clinical characteristics of survivors and non-survivors are shown in
Table 3. Compared to survivors, non-survivors were significantly older (55.9, SD 17.9, vs. 65.9, SD 14.2, years), were more likely to have chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (49.4% vs. 71.3% and 65.4 vs. 91.3%, respectively), and were more likely to be hospitalized due to surgery (48.2% vs. 51.8%). The median length of stay in hospital after
A. baumannii infection for non-survivors was 6 days (IQR, 1–21) compared to 21 days (12.5–41.5) for those who survived.
Among non-survivors, death occurred significantly more frequently in those who were treated with combination therapy than those who were treated with monotherapy (84.4% vs. 15.6%) and in those who were not co-infected with other bacteria than those who had co-infections (56.5% vs. 43.5%).
Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to assess the ability of age and length of hospital stay after the detection of A. baumannii infection to predict in-hospital mortality in patients with drug-resistant A. baumannii. The age of > 58 years had an AUC of 0.66 (95% CI, 0.59–0.72), sensitivity of 71.3%, and specificity of 54.3% (p < 0.001) and length of hospital stay of < 10 days after the detection of A. baumannii infection had an AUC of 0.76 (95% CI, 0.70–0.82), sensitivity of 63.48%, and specificity of 80.25% (p < 0.001).
Binary logistic regression analysis was performed including the following significant variables in the univariate analysis: age, hospitalization after
A. baumannii infection, combination therapy, co-infection
, at least one chronic disease, hospitalization due to surgery and trauma. Several risk factors for in-hospital mortality were identified: combination therapy was associated with a 6.11-fold greater risk of in-hospital mortality (95% CI, 2.47–15.10); hospitalization of < 10 days after
A. baumannii infection, with a 4.26-fold greater risk (95% CI, 1.79–10.09); age of > 58 years, with 1.06-fold greater risk (95% CI, 1.03–1.09); and no co-infection, with a 2.55-fold greater risk (95% CI, 1.15–5.65) (
Table 4).
4. Discussion
A. baumannii is one of the most common opportunistic agents causing healthcare-associated infections, especially in the ICU setting [
11,
12]. The global estimated incidence of
A. baumannii infections is approximately one million cases per year, and due to resistance and lack of treatment options, hospital-acquired
A. baumannii infections are associated with high mortality, especially in critically ill patients [
13,
14]. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with infections caused by MDR
A. baumannii, to assess the characteristics of patients and the risk factors contributing to infection-related mortality in a tertiary-care teaching hospital.
In our study, the incidence of
A. baumannii infections in the ICU setting was lower than that reported in the study by Calò et al. [
15] (43.4% vs. 52.5%). This difference in incidence rates may be explained by the use of infection control measures, particularly hand hygiene practices and decontamination of the hospital environment [
16]. The study by Uwingabiye et al. [
16] showed that patients who developed ICU-acquired
A. baumannii infection had a median ICU length of 18 (IQR: 10–26) days; in our study, the median length of ICU stay was 10 (IQR, 3–20) days. Appaneal et al. [
17] reported that length of stay > 10 days was higher among those with MDR
A. baumannii versus non-MDR
A. baumannii, suggesting that ICU-acquired
A. baumannii infections are due to prolonged ICU stay. Unnecessary hospitalization days may increase the rate of hospital-acquired complications and economic burden [
18]. Long stays in the ICU and the use of medical devices are necessary for the treatment of critically ill patients in modern medicine, but their presence is associated with the risk of infection. Previous studies have identified mechanical ventilation as a possible risk factor for ventilator-associated pneumonia and bacteremia [
19,
20]. This explains why
A. baumannii isolates were most commonly found in the respiratory tract of our patients (66.3%), and this is consistent with the findings of the study by Hafiz et al. [
21] who found that respiratory infections caused by
A. baumannii accounted for 63% of all
A. baumannii-related infections. According to the findings of other study investigating the prevalence of
A. baumannii in the samples collected from different sources including blood, respiratory tract, and urine, the lower respiratory tract also represented the most common source of infection (67%) [
22].
In our study, of the 196 patients, 17 (8.7%) were considered colonized, whereas infection by
A. baumannii was diagnosed in 179 (91.3%) individuals. In another study, a high proportion of patients (60%) was colonized by
A. baumannii [
23]. Antibiotic exposure is one of the most frequently reported risk factors for MDR
A. baumannii colonization or infection, and the use of carbapenems, third-generation cephalosporins, and
β-lactams has been reported [
24,
25,
26]. Antibiotic therapy facilitates the emergence of new resistant mutants or the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant
A. baumannii by exerting selective pressure. In our study, monotherapy to treat
A. baumannii infection was administered in 23.5% of patients and combination therapy, in 59.2%. In the study by López-Cortés et al. [
27], 101 patients with sepsis caused by multidrug resistant
A. baumannii were evaluated in 28 Spanish hospitals. The study reported that 67.3% of patients received monotherapy, while 32.7% received combination therapy. In the study by Park et al., 44.6% of patients with
A. baumannii infections were treated with monotherapy and 55.4%, with combination therapy [
28], given at a similar frequency as in our study. Combination antibiotic therapy is prescribed to treat more serious infections caused by MDR
A. baumannii and polymicrobial infections [
29].
In our study, in-hospital mortality was found to be 58.7%, which is comparable with mortality in other study [
30]. The worldwide mortality rate among patients with
A. baumannii infection ranges between 26% and 60% [
30,
31,
32]. The higher mortality rate can be attributed to several factors including underlying medical conditions, antimicrobial resistance, and appropriateness of treatment [
33]. Numerous risk factors have been investigated as potential predictors of mortality in patients infected with
A. baumannii. Several studies have analyzed the risk factors for mortality among patients with
A. baumannii infections, demonstrating that many comorbidities, including chronic liver, cardiovascular, and renal diseases, as well as more severe diseases, i.e. septic shock, or higher APACHE II or Pitt bacteremia scores, are associated with higher mortality rates [
17,
32,
34,
35]. Our study found that combination therapy of
A. baumannii infection, hospitalization after
A. baumannii infection within less than 10 days, age of > 58 years, and no co-infection were significantly associated with a greater risk of mortality. However, we did not find any significant association between the production of different types and numbers of
β-lactamases and clinical outcomes of the patients.
Some limitations of this study must be acknowledged. It was a single-hospital study involving adults; in addition, A. baumannii strains were not tested in 2018, 2019, and 2020, which means that some strains may be associated with potentially higher drug resistance. For more accurate results larger multicenter studies in different countries and hospitals would be relevant. Such multicenter studies would provide a better understanding of the impact of drug-resistant A. baumannii as a causative agent for in-hospital mortality.