Abstract
OBJECTIVES: This is a comparative cohort study aiming to evaluate the mortality risk factors for patients with nosocomial meningitis (NM) induced by multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (MDRE) in China. The clinical features and therapies of patients and the resistance mechanisms of MDRE pathogens were also assessed. METHODS: MDRE-NM patients from two neurosurgical centers in China from 2014 to 2019 were included in this study. Clinical features were extracted from the medical record databases of the two centers. The molecular mechanisms underlying the microbiological resistance mechanisms of each MDRE pathogen were determined, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was conducted, and multivariable analyses were performed using a Cox proportional hazard model. RESULTS: Ninety MDRE-NM patients were included in this study. Klebsiella pneumoniae accounted for the highest proportion of causative pathogens (46/90, 51.1%), and 40 causative pathogens (44.4%) were meropenem-resistant. blaKPC (27/40, 67.5%) was the predominant carbapenem resistance gene. Multivariate Cox analysis showed that external ventricular drainage (EVD) [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.524, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.101-5.787, p = 0.029] and a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score ≤;8 (HR = 4.033, 95% CI = 1.526-10.645, p = 0.005) were mortality risk factors for patients with MDRE-NM. A total of 90.0%, 94.4%, and 97.8% of MDRE-NM patients received antibiotic prophylaxis (AP), antibiotic empirical therapy (AET), and antibiotic definitive therapy (ADT), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: NM caused by MDRE is an important sign of the failure of neurosurgery. MDRE possesses multiple drug resistance genotypes, and EVD and a GCS score ≤;8 are independent mortality risk factors for patients with MDRE-NM, which deserve the attention of microbiologists and neurosurgical clinicians.