Ceftobiprole and pneumonia in adults admitted to the emergency department is it time to assess a new therapeutic algorithm?

Ceftobiprole is an advance generation cephalosporin which has broad-spectrum bacterial activity (both against Gram-positive and negative pathogens) and was approved for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and non-ventilated hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) in most European countries. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ceftobiprole in the treatment of pneumonia in a cohort of severely ill patients admitted to the emergency department (ED).1-year observational retrospective mono-centric study. Were defined two primary endpoints: first, to evaluate the clinical cure at the test-of-cure (TOC); the second, to evaluate the early improvement, defined as a reduction of symptoms and inflammatory parameters 72 hours after the start of treatment. The secondary endpoint is to evaluate the reduction of antibiotic "burden" using ceftobiprole despite standard of care in severe hospital-acquired pneumonia.During the study period, a total of 48 patients with severe pneumonia received ceftobiprole: twenty-two patients (45.8%) as empiric therapy, 9 (18.5%) as a de-escalation option from previous combination therapies, 13 patients (27.1%) as an escalation therapy from ceftriaxone or amoxicillin/clavulanate and four patients (8.3%) as a targeted therapy based on microbiological results. Ceftobiprole mean duration therapy was 10.2 days. Forty-six patients with severe pneumonia had an early clinical improvement 72 hours after the start of treatment (95.8%). In general, ceftobiprole was well tolerated; only one patient suspended the drug because of poor tolerability. The clinical cure at TOC was 85.4% and 30-days crude mortality was 10.4%.This study confirms that ceftobiprole is effective in severely ill patients with pneumonia at risk of poor outcomes.