Introduction:

The Colombian national pharmaceutical policy establishes as a strategy the generation of greater pharmaco-epidemiological research at the national level, especially in the case of antibiotic drugs.

Objective:

To provide local pharmaco-epidemiological evidence regarding the effectiveness, conditions of use and safety of generic meropenem and cefepime in a tertiary hospital in Bogotá.

Materials and methods:

We conducted a descriptive, longitudinal and retrospective drug utilization study. The data were collected from the medical histories of all the patients who had cefepime or meropenem prescribed.

Results:

We included 82 patients treated with cefepime and 91 treated with meropenem in the study. Most of the patients were in services different from the intensive care unit (taking cefepime: 59.8%, and meropenem: 52.7%). Only 21.9% of the patients treated with cefepime and 49% of those treated with meropenem were seen by an infectious disease specialist. The antibiogram was performed for 47% and 60% of the patients treated with cefepime and meropenem, respectively. The most frequent indication for cefepime were respiratory infections and for meropenem, genitourinary ones. Therapeutic success rates were 61.7% for cefepime and 63.0% for meropenem.

Conclusions:

This study contributes evidence regarding the therapeutic performance of two generic antibiotics used in tertiary hospitals. There were no reports of therapeutic failure during the study period. In the cases of non-response, pharmacokinetic alterations, unfavorable clinical conditions, and inappropriate choice of antimicrobial treatment were identified as frequent factors.

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