Nosocomial spontaneous bacterial peritonitis antibiotic treatment in the era of multi-drug resistance pathogens: A systematic review

AIM: To systematically review literature upon aetiology of nosocomial spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (N-SBP) given the rising importance of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria. METHODS: A literature search was performed on MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases from 2000 to 15(th) of November 2016, using the following search strategy: “spontaneous” AND “peritonitis”. RESULTS: The initial search through electronic databases retrieved 2556 records. After removing duplicates, 1958 records remained. One thousand seven hundred and thirty-five of them were excluded on the basis of the screening of titles and abstract, and the ensuing number of remaining articles was 223. Of these records, after careful evaluation, only 9 were included in the qualitative analysis. The overall proportion of MDR bacteria turned out to be from 22% to 73% of cases across the studies. CONCLUSION: N-SBP is caused, in a remarkable proportion, by MDR pathogens. This should prompt a careful re-assessment of guidelines addressing the treatment of this clinical entity.