BACTEREMIC NOSOCOMIAL PNEUMONIA - A 7-YEAR EXPERIENCE IN ONE INSTITUTION

Study object: To describe the epidemiology, microbiology, and outcome of nosocomial pneumonia with secondary bloodstream infection. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Tertiary care Canadian teaching hos pital. Patients: Inpatients. Measurement: All inpatient blood cultures were concurrently monitored over an 89 month period. Following chart review, patients experiencing nosocomial bloodstream infection due to pneumonia were identified, A standardized definition of pneumonia was used. Results: One hundred forty-nine episodes occurred in 145 patient s, 0.66/1,000 hospital admissions, 8.4% of all nosocomial bloodstream infections, No change in rate occurred in the study period, Fifty-four percent of episodes developed in one of seven ICUs, Staphylococcus au reus was the most frequently identified etiologic organism (21%), The ICU and non-ICU cases did not differ in etiology, No organism became m ore prevalent during the study period. Twenty percent of patients died within 1 week of first positive culture; episodes associated with Pse udomonas species had a much higher mortality rate (45%) than other inf ections (14%) (p=0.002), The ICU and non-ICU infections had a similar mortality rate. Conclusion: Pneumonia is an important cause of nosocom ial bloodstream infection, but it is not increasing in frequency or ch anging in etiology in our institution, The ICUs are a major contributo r to this problem but have the same case short-term mortality rate and microbial etiology as non-ICU cases, Cases associated with Pseudomona s have a much higher mortality rate.