The Epidemiology of Multidrug-Resistant Sepsis among Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

Sepsis is one of the leading causes of hospitalization and death among hemodialysis patients. Infections due to multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) are common among these patients, but empiric broad-spectrum coverage for every septic patient is associated with unfavorable outcomes. A retrospective case-control study was conducted at Shamir Medical Center, Israel (July 2016-April 2020), to determine predictors of MDRO infections among septic (per SEPSIS-3) ambulatory adult hemodialysis patients with permanent dialysis access (i.e., fistula, graft, or tunneled Perm-A-Cath). MDROs were determined according to established definitions. Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression was used to construct a prediction score and determine its performance. Of 509 patients, 225 (44%) had microbiologically confirmed infection, and 79 patients (35% of 225) had MDROs. The eventual independent predictors of MDRO infections were Perm-A-Cath access (vs. fistula or graft, aOR = 3, CI-95% = 2.1-4.2) and recent hospitalization in the previous three months (aOR = 2.3, CI-95% = 1.6-3.3). The score to predict MDRO sepsis with the highest performances contained seven parameters and displayed an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC AUC) of 0.74. This study could aid in defining a group of hemodialysis patients for which empiric broad-spectrum agents could be safely avoided.