The treatment of infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, especially New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-producing bacteria, is challenging. Although less common in the United States than some other carbapenemase producers, NDM-producing bacteria are a public health threat due to the limited treatment options available. Here, we report on the antibiotic susceptibility of 275 contemporary NDM-producing Enterobacterales collected from 30 U.S. states through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network. The aims of the study were to determine the susceptibility of these isolates to 32 currently available antibiotics using reference broth microdilution and to explore the in vitro activity of 3 combination agents that are not yet available. Categorical interpretations were determined using Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) interpretive criteria. For agents without CLSI criteria, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) interpretive criteria were used. The percentage of susceptible isolates did not exceed 90% for any of the FDA-approved antibiotics tested. The antibiotics with breakpoints that had the highest in vitro activity were tigecycline (86.5% susceptible), eravacycline (66.2% susceptible), and omadacycline (59.6% susceptible); 18.2% of isolates were susceptible to aztreonam. All NDM-producing isolates tested were multidrug resistant, and 116 isolates were extensively drug resistant (42.2%); 207 (75.3%) isolates displayed difficult-to-treat resistance. The difficulty in treating infections caused by NDM-producing Enterobacterales highlights the need for containment and prevention efforts to keep these infections from becoming more common.
Keywords: Enterobacterales; NDM; antibiotic resistance; carbapenems.