A large new review of hospital antibiotic trials has reopened a question that has followed cefepime for nearly two decades. The analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, estimated a 94.4% probability that cefepime is associated with a higher risk of death within about 30 days than other beta-lactam antibiotics, the drug family that includes penicillins and cephalosporins.
That figure does not mean cefepime raises the risk of death by 94%. Across all included trials, 6.6% of patients given cefepime died, compared with 6.2% of patients given comparison antibiotics, according to a summary by Contagion Live.
