Epidemiology Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Epidemiology, including details on twin studies, statistics, environmental and genetic factors.

Epidemiology and clinical outcomes of community-acquired pneumonia in adult patients in Asian countries: a prospective study by the Asian network for surveillance of resistant pathogens.

Song JH, Oh WS, Kang CI, Chung DR, Peck KR, Ko KS, Yeom JS, Kim CK, Kim SW, Chang HH, Kim YS, Jung SI, Tong Z, Wang Q, Huang SG, Liu JW, Lalitha MK, Tan BH, Van PH, Carlos CC, So T,

Division of Infectious Diseases, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50 Ilwon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-710, South Korea; Asian-Pacific Research Foundation for Infectious Diseases, Seoul, South Korea.

Appropriate antimicrobial treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) should be based on the distribution of aetiological pathogens, antimicrobial resistance of major pathogens, clinical characteristics and outcomes. We performed a prospective observational study of 955 cases of adult CAP in 14 hospitals in eight Asian countries. Microbiological evaluation to determine etiological pathogens as well as clinical evaluation was performed. Bronchopulmonary disease (29.9%) was the most frequent underlying disease, followed by cardiovascular diseases (19.9%), malignancy (11.7%) and neurological disorder (8.2%). Streptococcus pneumoniae (29.2%) was the most common isolate, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (15.4%) and Haemophilus influenzae (15.1%). Serological tests were positive for Mycoplasma pneumoniae (11.0%) and Chlamydia pneumoniae (13.4%). Only 1.1% was positive for Legionella pneumophila by urinary antigen test. Of the pneumococcal isolates, 56.1% were resistant to erythromycin and 52.6% were not susceptible to penicillin. Seventeen percent of CAP had mixed infection, especially S. pneumoniae with C. pneumoniae. The overall mortality rate was 7.3%, and nursing home residence, mechanical ventilation, malignancy, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory rate>30/min and hyponatraemia were significant independent risk factors for mortality by multivariate analysis (P<0.05). The current data provide relevant information about pathogen distribution and antimicrobial resistance of major pathogens of CAP as well as clinical outcomes of illness in Asian countries.

Published 8 January 2008 in Int J Antimicrob Agents, 31(2): 107-14.
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