Assessment of mortality after long-term follow-up of patients with community-acquired pneumonia.

Although studies have assessed short-term mortality among patients with community-acquired pneumonia, there is limited data on prognosis and risk factors that affect long-term mortality. The mortality among patients enrolled at 4 sites of the Pneumonia Patient Outcome Research Team cohort study who survived at least 90 days after presentation to the hospital was compared with that among age-matched control subjects. Overall, 1419 of 1555 patients survived for >90 days, with a mean follow-up period of 5.9 years. There was significantly higher long-term mortality among patients with pneumonia than among age-matched controls. Factors significantly associated with long-term mortality were age (stratified by decade), do-not-resuscitate status, poor nutritional status, pleural effusion, glucocorticoid use, nursing home residence, high school graduation level or less, male sex, preexisting comorbid illnesses, and the lack of feverishness. This study demonstrates that there is significantly higher long-term mortality among patients with pneumonia than among age-matched controls and that long-term mortality largely is not affected by acute physiologic derangements.