A national retrospective cohort study comparing of cefepime versus piperacillin-tazobactam on the development of severe acute kidney injury in patients with septic shock

Background: Cefepime and piperacillin-tazobactam are commonly used broad-spectrum antibiotics used to treat patients with potential gram-negative bacterial sepsis. Piperacillin-tazobactam has been shown to be associated with acute kidney injury (AKI). However, it has not been compared to cefepime in patients with septic shock. We compared cefepime and piperacillin-tazobactam on the incidence of severe AKI in patients with septic shock.

Methods: This was a retrospective, multicenter, inverse probability-of-treatment weighted cohort study conducted in 220 geographically diverse community and teaching hospitals across the U.S. Adult patients were included if they had septic shock on hospital admission and received cefepime or piperacillin-tazobactam. Proportion of patients who developed stage 3 AKI during hospitalization were compared between groups.

Results: Of the 8427 patients included in the final cohort, 4569 received cefepime and 3858 received piperacillin-tazobactam. Patients had a mean (SD) age of 66.2 years (15.2), and 45.3% were female, mean (SD) eGFR was 48 (24) ml/min/1.73m2 on the day of admission. In the weighted cohort, stage 3 AKI occurred in 9.9% with cefepime and 9.8% with piperacillin-tazobactam (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.84-1.15, p=0.823). In terms of secondary outcomes, there was no significant difference between cefepime and piperacillin-tazobactam with regard to renal replacement therapy, in-hospital death, major adverse kidney events, stage 1 AKI, stage 2 AKI, maximum recorded serum creatinine, or hospital length of stay.

Conclusions: Among hospitalized patients with septic shock, there was no difference between cefepime and piperacillin-tazobactam on the occurrence of severe AKI.