Long-Term Self-Administered Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy in the Treatment of Tuberculosis.

Objectives: To investigate the safety profiles and clinical outcomes in a continuous cohort of tuberculosis (TB) patients from a clinical referral centre in Germany receiving self-administered outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (sOPAT).

Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study of patients receiving sOPAT after discharge from the Research Center Borstel in Germany between January 2015 and December 2020. Data were extracted from medical records.

Results: In the observation period, 150 patients received parenteral antibiotics at the Research Center Borstel. Of these, 89 received sOPAT via a port catheter and were further analysed. The majority were male (n = 59, 66.3%), with a median age of 33.6 years (interquartile range-IQR 26.2-42.8). Most patients had multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB (n = 56, 62.9%) or pre-extensively drug resistant (pre-XDR)-TB (n = 21; 23.6%). Fifty-eight (65.2%) patients received one and 24 patients (27.0%) received two parenteral drugs, most commonly capreomycin (n = 53, 59.6%) and meropenem (n = 44, 49.4%). The median duration of sOPAT was 7.4 months (IQR 5.2-17.2). In total, 71,128 intravenous drug administrations were recorded. One patient died of TB while another patient was lost to follow-up. Sixty-two (69.7%) patients completed the sOPAT regimen, the most common reason for premature discontinuation was adverse drug events (n = 12, 13.5%). There were eight (9.0%) port-related complications requiring port explantation (bloodstream infections: n = 6, local infection: n = 1, port thrombosis: n = 1).

Conclusions: In selected patients requiring long-term intravenous anti-TB therapy, sOPAT is a feasible treatment option with a low risk of complications when adequate infrastructure and training are in place.