Pneumonia Severity Assessment Tools for Predicting Mortality in Patients with Healthcare-Associated Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND

In contrast to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), no specific severity assessment tools have been developed for healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) in clinical practice.

OBJECTIVES

In this review, we assessed the clinical significance of severity assessment tools for HCAP.

METHODS

We identified related articles from the PubMed database. The eligibility criteria were original research articles evaluating severity scoring tools and reporting the outcomes of mortality in patients with HCAP.

RESULTS

Eight articles were included in the meta-analysis. The PORT score and CURB-65 were evaluated in 7 and 8 studies, respectively. Using cutoff values of ≥IV and V for the PORT score, the diagnostic odds ratios (DORs) were 5.28 (2.49-11.17) and 3.76 (2.88-4.92), respectively, and the areas under the curve (AUCs) were 0.68 (0.64-0.72) and 0.71 (0.67-0.75), respectively. Conversely, the AUCs for ≥IV and V were 0.71 (0.67-0.76) and 0.74 (0.70-0.78), respectively, when applied only to nonimmunocompromised patients. In contrast, when using cutoff values of ≥2 and ≥3 for CURB-65, the DORs were 3.35 (2.26-4.97) and 2.65 (2.05-3.43), respectively, and the AUCs were 0.65 (0.61-0.69) and 0.66 (0.62-0.70), respectively. Conversely, the AUCs for ≥2 and ≥3 were 0.65 (0.61-0.69) and 0.68 (0.64-0.72), respectively, when applied only to nonimmunocompromised patients.

CONCLUSIONS

The PORT score and CURB-65 do not have substantial power compared with the tools for CAP patients, although the PORT score is more useful than CURB-65 for predicting mortality in HCAP patients. According to our results, however, these tools, especially the PORT score, can be more useful when limited to nonimmunocompromised patients.