Etiology of community-acquired pneumonia: Case series at the Hospital of San José Etiología de la neumonía adquirida en la comunidad: Serie de casos del Hospital de San José

Abstract

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) continues to be a serious disease. More than 5.6 million cases occur annually and about 1.1 million require hospitalization. In the Hospital of San José, during the last two years, a high percentage of NAC was found as a cause of admission to the internal medicine service (37.5%). Given the implications of the presence of this disease, it is important to know the causative germs and the sensitivity to the different antibiotics used. We conducted a descriptive study of a series of 159 patients admitted with a diagnosis of CAP, from April 1, 2003 to November 30, 2005. Of these, 63 men (49.62%) and 96 women (60.37%). 86 were classified as NAC IIIA (54.1%), 66 as NAC IIIB (41.5%), 6 NAC VAT (3.8%) and one patient as NAC IVB (0.6%). The casual germ was isolated in 8.8% of the samples taken, the most frequent being Klebsiella pneumoniae (3.1%), followed in a lesser percentage by Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus hominis and Pseudomona aeruginosa. Abbreviations: NAC, pneumonia acquired in the community; NAC I, II, III A, III B, IV A, IV B, see Table 2; COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, DM, diabetes mellitus, CRF, chronic renal failure; ICC, congestive heart failure.