The impact of a multimodal approach to vancomycin discontinuation in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients (HSCT) with febrile neutropenia (FN).

BACKGROUND

Current guidelines recommend adding vancomycin to empiric treatment of FN in patients who meet specific criteria. After 48 hours, the guidelines recommend discontinuing vancomycin if resistant Gram-positive organisms are not identified. Based on these recommendations, a vancomycin stewardship team defined criteria for discontinuation of vancomycin at 48 hours and increased surveillance of vancomycin usage through a multimodal approach. The purpose of this retrospective analysis is to assess the impact of this multimodal approach on the discontinuation of empiric vancomycin at 48 hours in FN.

METHODS

This retrospective analysis included a pre- and post-intervention cohort of 200 HSCT recipients with FN from 2015 to 2018. Criteria for continued vancomycin use beyond 48 hours included culture-documented resistant Gram-positive infection, positive Methicillin-Resistant S aureus (MRSA) nasal swab with evidence of pneumonia, or hemodynamic instability with concern for sepsis. The following patient characteristics were collected: previous MRSA infection, MRSA nasal swab collection and results, culture results, duration of vancomycin use, rationale for continuation of vancomycin beyond 48 hours, and re-initiation of vancomycin.

RESULTS

In the post-intervention cohort, vancomycin discontinuation at 48 hours increased from 31% (95% CI 21.94-40.05) to 70% (95% CI 61.02-78.97; P < 0.0001). An additional 23% of vancomycin orders were discontinued at 72 hours. Off criteria vancomycin use decreased from 33% in pre to 1% in the post-implementation cohort.

CONCLUSION

Establishing define criteria for vancomycin use in FN patients with a multimodal approach of physicians from hematology and infectious diseases, clinical pharmacists and the antibiotic stewardship team significantly improved vancomycin discontinuation.