Modern death risk factors in patients with community-acquired pneumonia

Abstract

Aim. To study death risk factors in patients with community-acquired pneumonia in municipal hospitals in Samara. Methods. 75 cases of deaths of patients hospitalized because of community-acquired pneumonia were studied (study group), 300 convalescent patients with community-acquired pneumonia discharged from the hospital were included in the control group. The retrospective comparative «case control» study was performed. Results. Mean age of the patients who died was 47.4±2.2 years; men were more prevalent (70.6%), time since admission date till death was 6.5±2.5 days, more than a third (36.0%) died before 24 hours after admission. The study group contained significantly higher number of unemployed (72.0%) and intravenous drugs users (16.0%). HIV infection was found in 37.3% of the patients who died, compared to 19.6% prevalence in control group. Multifactorial logistic regression of clinical signs revealed the following death risk factors in patients with community-acquired pneumonia: infiltrates on X-ray involving more than one lung lobe, arterial hypotension (systolic blood pressure ≤100 mm Hg, diastolic blood pressure ≤60 mm Hg), tachypnea (breath rate over 25 per minute). Conclusion. Factors having the highest positive prognostic value for a lethal outcome at patients with community-acquired pneumonia are: late admission, multilobar pneumonia; arterial hypotension; tachypnea; HIV infection, social unemployment and male gender.