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Thursday, 09/16/2010
Hospital-acquired pneumonia, etiologic pathogens and outcome depend on the underlying clinical condition rather than previous intubation, according to an IDIBAPS study
The study was published last August in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and has been led by IDIBAPS Respiratory Research Physician Mariano Esperatti
A study led by Mariano Esperatti and funded by CibeRes, ERS Fellowship and IDIBAPS group would suggest that when hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is acquired in the intensive care unit (ICU), the type of etiologic pathogens and outcome of patients are similar, regardless pneumonia is acquired during ventilation or not. That would indicate that both etiology and outcome depend on the underlying clinical condition of patients rather than previous intubation.
Before this study was carried out, there was no evidence to either prove or refute that different etiology and outcome depended on previous intubation. That was down to the fact that HAP had never been studied in critically-ill non-ventilated patients admitted to an ICU.
In order to carry out the research, the team prospectively collected 315 episodes of ICU-acquired pneumonia. They compared clinical and microbiological characteristics of patients with in critically-ill non-ventilated patients admitted to an ICU, among whom 52% needed subsequent intubation. Compared with Non Ventilated-ICU Acquired Pneumonia, patients with Ventilator Associated Pneumonia were more severe (p<0.001) and pneumonia occurred later in the ICU (p<0.001). The hospital mortality was similar among groups.
The study entitled Nosocomial Pneumonia in the Intensive Care Unit Acquired during Mechanical Ventilation or No (Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Aug 6) has been run by Mariano Esperatti, Miquel Ferrer, Anna Theessen, Adamantia Liapikou, Mauricio Valencia, Lina María Saucedo, Elisabeth Zavala, Tobias Welte and Antoni Torres.