Vol.61 No.5 September 2013

A study on the clinical efficacy of tazobactam/piperacillin in pediatric patients with pneumonia requiring hospitalization

Aki Saito¹⁾, Norikazu Inamura¹⁾, Yoko Nishizawa¹⁾, Atsushi Kato¹⁾, Eisuke Kondo¹⁾, Hideto Teranishi¹⁾, Tokio Wakabayashi¹⁾, Hiroto Akaike¹⁾, Yasuhiro Kawai²⁾, Takaaki Tanaka²⁾, Satoko Ogita¹⁾, Kozo Kawasaki¹⁾, Kihei Terada¹⁾, Takashi Nakano²⁾, Naoyuki Miyashita³⁾, Yoko Ninomiya⁴⁾ and Kazunobu Ouchi¹⁾

¹⁾Department of Pediatrics, Kawasaki Medical School Hospital, 577 Matsushima, Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan
²⁾Department of Pediatrics, Kawasaki Hospital
³⁾Department of Internal Medicine, Kawasaki Hospital
⁴⁾Pharmaceutical Department, Kawasaki Medical School Hospital

Abstract

We retrospectively investigated the clinical efficacy and safety of a penicillin antibiotic combined with a beta-lactamase inhibitor, tazobactam/piperacillin(TAZ/PIPC), in pediatric patients with pneumonia who required hospitalization. The fever duration after antibiotic treatment was 10.2±6.7 hours for the TAZ/PIPC group, 20.2±20.2 hours for the piperacillin(PIPC) group (P=0.02), 23.3±19.9 hours (P=0.004) for the sulbactam/ampicillin(SBT/ABPC) group, and 27.4±20.9 hours for the ceftriaxone(CTRX) group (P=0.001). The TAZ/PIPC group had a significantly shorter antifebrile time, compared with all of the other treatment groups. Regarding side effects, the percentage of patients who developed diarrhea was 21.1% (4/19 patients) for the TAZ/PIPC group, 25.8% (8/31) for the PIPC group, 29.6% (8/27) for the SBT/ABPC group, and 31.3% (5/16) for the CTRX group, no significant differences were observed among the groups. In summary, TAZ/PIPC significantly shortened the fever duration after antibiotic treatment and, given that the side effect profile was not different from those of other drugs, appeared to be safe in pediatric patients with pneumonia who required hospitalization. TAZ/PIPC may also be useful for pediatric patients with severe pneumonia and a pre-existing disease that might increase the severity of the pneumonia.

Key word

child, pneumonia, tazobactam/piperacillin

Received

February 21, 2013

Accepted

June 5, 2013

Jpn. J. Chemother. 61 (5): 421-426, 2013