Role of tigecycline in the treatment of urinary tract infections: a systematic review of published case reports.

Introduction: The emergence of multi-drug resistance has forced clinicians to occasionally use drugs that are not approved to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs). This systematic review aimed to evaluate the utility of tigecycline in patients with UTIs.

Methodology: A systematic review of case studies was used to retrieve articles between 1.1.1999 to 1.1.2021 from two databases, PubMed and Embase. The title-abstract screening was done for 198 articles, out of which 69 articles were included for full-text screening. A total of 18 articles with 27 cases were included for final analysis.

Results: Of the 27 cases, there were 13 cases with complicated UTI and five had catheter-associated UTI. The most common organisms were Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=11), Acinetobacter baumannii (n=9), and Escherichia coli (n=6). Tigecycline was used as monotherapy in 19 patients and as a combination therapy in 8 patients. The median duration of tigecycline was 13 (10-15) days. A favourable clinical or microbiological response at varying intervals was seen in 24/27 (88.9%). Within three months of a favourable response, recurrence of symptoms was seen in four patients.

Conclusion: In a small analysis of published case reports, tigecycline appeared to be a relatively effective treatment in patients with UTIs, caused by multidrug-resistant organisms. Where tigecycline is the only susceptible drug, it can be used for treatment. Further research, such as randomized controlled trials, is needed to fully assess the drug's efficacy in this context.