Doripenem noninferior to meropenem in cIAIs

According to late-breaking phase III data presented at the 46th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) [San Francisco, California, US; September 2006], the novel carbapenem doripenem [Finibax] is noninferior to meropenem in the treatment of patients hospitalised with complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAIs); the clinical cure rates in the microbiologically evaluable (ME) population at the test-of-cure (TOC) assessment were 83% in both treatment groups. Clinical cure rates in the microbiological modified intent-to-treat (ITT) population were 74.5% and 75.7% in the doripenem and meropenem treatment arms, respectively. Doripenem demonstrated broad-spectrum activity against the major pathogens responsible for cIAIs, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa; the microbiological eradication rates, overall, and by baseline pathogen, were similar in both treatment arms.