The prognostic value of the Charlson’s comorbidity index in patients with bacteremic pneumonia
Seungeon Song, Sang Woo Moon, Se Young Kim, Min Seok Ko, Jin Eun Kim · 2018
Pneumonia is a common disease with frequent hospitalization and bacteremic pneumonia associated with a high mortality rate. And comorbidity is one of the most important determinants of mortality. Our study evaluated prognostic significance of Charlson’s weighted index of comorbidities (WIC) in patients with bacteremic pneumonia. A retrospective study based on an analysis of medical records of 767 patients with pneumonia who had a positive blood culture admission in a university-affiliated tertiary care hospital between 2010 - 2017. Their mean WIC was 1.7±2.8, and It was significantly higher for nonsurvivors than for survivors (3.5±2.1 vs. 1.6±1.8, p<0.05). In addition, the 28-day mortality rate after admission was 11.5%. The area under the Receiver operating characteristics curve for WIC was 0.622 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.573-0.691, p<0.05). Based on Kaplan-Meier curves of 28-day survival, WIC ≥ 5 had statistically lower survival than WIC ≤ 4 (log-rank test: p < 0.05). In a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, WIC ≥ 5 was associated with poor prognosis (Hazard ratio 1.907, ; p<0.05). The mortality rate of patients with WIC ≥ 5 was 34.7%. Our study showed a WIC 4 or more might be helpful in predicting 28-day mortality in bacteremic pneumonia patients. The WIC score is an important predictor of mortality for patients with bacteremic pneumonia.