A study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows how a new antibiotic can treat hospital-acquired pneumonia, such as ventilator-associated pneumonia. It has a similar efficiency to that of one of the most used antibiotics nowadays—carbapenem—but it can overcome problems coming from its administration, such as the resistance to certain bacteria.

The main researcher of the study and first signer of the article is Professor Antoni Torres, from the Department of Medicine and head of the Unit of Respiratory Intensive Unit (UVIR) in Hospital Clínic and head of the team of Applied Research on Infectious Respiratory Diseases, Critically Ill Patients and Lung Cancer in IDIBAPS.

Although there is a treatment for hospital-acquired diseases, this disease has a 10% associated death rate and is becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. In order to carry out this study, the researchers conducted a clinical trial aimed at proving the equivalence between drugs with ceftazidime-avibactam and the current standard treatment with carbapenem.

The study had 879 patients participating, from 136 centers from 23 countries. The results show that this combination of antibiotics is as efficient as carbanepem and it helps to solve multi-resistance problems by several pathogen bacteria that cause nosocomial pneumonia.