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| |  Optimising Treatment of Comorbidities After Hospitalisation for Pneumonia Reduces Mortality: Presented at ICAAC By Micheal Casasnovas SAN FRANCISCO -- September 18, 2009 -- According to a study presented here at the 49th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), patients recovering from community-acquired pneumonia need optimised treatment of comorbidities to reduce a high post-treatment mortality rate. The retrospective study revealed that the 7-year mortality following a bout of pneumonia that required hospitalisation was 53%. “Mortality rates are high after initial recovery from an episode of community-acquired pneumonia” said Anke H. W. Bruns, MD, Department of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, University Medical Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands, in a poster presentation on September 13. Dr. Bruns and colleagues accessed the Dutch Municipal Public Records Database to aid them in determining survival status up to 7 years after discharge of the 356 patients who had participated in research trials. Researchers ascertained causes of deaths through death certificates. Of the 356 patients, 2% died in the first month after discharge, 17% after the first year, 43% after the fifth year, and 53% after the seventh year of follow-up. When compared with a sex- and age-matched general population group, patients that recovered from pneumonia had a significantly higher long-term mortality rate, he said. About 53% of the patients with pneumonia died compared with 24% of individuals in the general population (P < .001). Researchers found that after surviving pneumonia the most occurring comorbidities were cancer (27%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (19%), and vascular diseases (16%). In 6% of patients, relapse of pneumonia caused mortality. “Compared with the general population, patients who survived pneumonia had a 4 times higher risk of dying of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease,” said Dr. Bruns. “Insights into causes of death in patients who encountered pneumonia may help us in development of preventive and therapeutic strategies to reduce long-term mortality from pneumonia. Optimising treatment of comorbidities such as screening and treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or screening for vascular diseases seems the most likely strategy to increase long-time survival after initial recovery of an episode of community-acquired pneumonia,” he said. [Presentation Title: High Mortality Rates Due to Co-morbidity After Recovery From Community-Acquired Pneumonia. Abstract LI-998]
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