The 2021 Dutch Working Party on Antibiotic Policy (SWAB) Guidelines for Empirical Antibacterial Therapy of Sepsis in Adults

Background: The Dutch Working Party on Antibiotic Policy (SWAB) in collaboration with relevant professional societies, has updated their evidence-based guidelines on empiric antibacterial therapy of sepsis in adults.

Methods: Our multidisciplinary guideline committee generated ten population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) questions relevant for adult patients with sepsis. For each question, a literature search was performed to obtain the best available evidence and assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system. The quality of evidence for clinically relevant outcomes was graded from high to very low. In structured consensus meetings, the committee formulated recommendations as strong or weak. When evidence could not be obtained, recommendations were provided based on expert opinion and experience (good practice statements).

Results: Fifty-five recommendations on the antibacterial therapy of sepsis were generated. Recommendations on empiric antibacterial therapy choices were differentiated for sepsis according to the source of infection, the potential causative pathogen and its resistance pattern. One important revision was the distinction between low, increased and high risk of infection with Enterobacterales resistant to third generation cephalosporins (3GRC-E) to guide the choice of empirical therapy. Other new topics included empirical antibacterial therapy in patients with a reported penicillin allergy and the role of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to guide dosing in sepsis. We also established recommendations on timing and duration of antibacterial treatment.

Conclusions: Our multidisciplinary committee formulated evidence-based recommendations for the empiric antibacterial therapy of adults with sepsis in The Netherlands.