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Wednesday, 10/05/2011
New data on aetiology and prognosis of Community acquired polymicrobial pneumonia in the ICU has been published in Critical Care Journal
This study has been carried on by Catia Cilloniz and its results will be part of her Doctoral thesis directed by Prof. Antoni Torres
Clinical implications of having polymicrobial community acquired pneumonia in patients admitted to the ICU have been poorly studied. In the manuscript entitled: Community acquired polymicrobial pneumonia in the intensive care unit: aetiology and prognosis, authors have studied a population of 362 patients, of which 39 had polymicrobial infections mainly due to Streptococcus pneumoniae (n=28, 72%), respiratory viruses (n=15, 39%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n=8, 21%).
Since, inappropriate initial antimicrobial treatment was more frequent in the polymicrobial, compared with the monomicrobial aetiology group (39% versus 10%, p <0.001), and was an independent predictor of hospital mortality (adjusted odds-ratio 10.79, 95% confidence interval 3.97 to 29.30; p<0.001), this study concludes that polymicrobial pneumonia is a risk factor for inappropriate initial antimicrobial treatment which in turn independently predicts hospital mortality.
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