Antibiotic therapy for enterobacter meningitis: a retrospective review of 13 episodes and review of the literature.

Abstract

Enterobacter meningitis is an uncommon form of meningitis whose treatment poses a therapeutic dilemma because of the development of resistance to the third-generation cephalosporins while the patient receives therapy. In recent years, we have been using trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMZ) as treatment for this infection. In this report, we reviewed 13 episodes of enterobacter meningitis that were treated with various antibiotic regimens and 33 episodes from the literature. We found that the development of resistance to beta-lactam agents may be much higher than that seen in bacteremias (approximately 30%), that the case-fatality rate is lower among our patients than among those described previously, and that all patients who received TMP-SMZ were cured, compared with about 70% of those receiving beta-lactam agents. TMP-SMZ appears to be an acceptable alternative to the cephalosporins for the treatment of enterobacter meningitis.