Recent updates of carbapenem antibiotics

Carbapenems are among the most commonly used and the most efficient antibiotics since they are relatively resistant to hydrolysis by most beta-lactamases, they target penicillin-binding proteins, and generally have broad-spectrum antibacterial effect. In this review, we described the initial discovery and development of carbapenems, chemical characteristics, in vitrolin vivo activities, resistance studies, and clinical investigations for traditional carbapenem antibiotics in the market; imipenem-cilastatin, meropenem, ertapenem, doripenem, biapenem, panipenem/betamipron in addition to newer carbapenems such as razupenem, tebipenem, tomopenem, and sanfetrinem. We focused on the literature published from 2010 to 2016. (C) 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.