Introduction
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by antimicrobial-resistant Enterobacterales are a global health threat. There are limited surveillance data available to characterize the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance among outpatients in the United States (US).
Methods
This retrospective cohort (database) study investigated co-resistance among
Escherichia coli
and
Klebsiella pneumoniae
urinary isolates from US female outpatients aged ≥ 12 years with presumed uncomplicated UTI (uUTI), ≥ 3 months of data (2011–2019), and antimicrobial susceptibility testing results. Eligible isolates were the first urinary
E. coli
or
K. pneumoniae
isolate per patient collected within 30 days; classified as not susceptible (NS) if antimicrobial susceptibility testing results were intermediate or resistant to each antibiotic tested. Four resistance phenotypes were identified: NS to fluoroquinolones (FQ), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (SXT), nitrofurantoin (NTF), and extended-spectrum β-lactamase+/third-generation cephalosporin (ESBL+/3GC NS). Co-resistance phenotypes included all possible combinations of resistance to ≥ 2 drug classes.
Results
Of 1,513,882
E. coli
isolates and 250,719
K. pneumoniae
isolates, 856,918 and 187,459 isolates with ≥ 1 resistance phenotype were included in the analysis, respectively. The most common resistance phenotypes were SXT NS for the
E. coli
isolates (44.8%) and NTF NS for the
K. pneumoniae
isolates (75.5%), while ESBL+/3GC NS comprised 11.2 and 5.9%, respectively. Among ESBL+/3GC NS
E. coli
isolates, 72.4, 56.7, and 46.6% were co-resistant to FQ, SXT, and FQ + SXT, respectively. For ESBL+/3GC NS
K. pneumoniae
isolates, 65.7 and 45.7% were co-resistant to SXT and FQ + SXT.
Conclusion
Both species exhibited high rates of co-resistance, emphasizing the need to raise awareness of co-resistance and of the unmet need for effective treatment options for uUTI.