Secondary pulmonary infection and co-infection in elderly COVID-19 patients during the pandemics in a tertiary general hospital in Beijing, China
Chaoe Zhou, Yaping Jiang, Liying Sun, Haixia Li, Xinmin Liu, Lei Huang
Frontiers in Microbiology, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1280026
Background: Most people are infected with COVID-19 during pandemics at the end of 2022. Older patients were more vulnerable. However, the incidence of secondary bacterial, fungal or viral pulmonary infection and co-infection is not well described in elderly hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all elderly (≥65 years) hospitalized patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from December 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023. Demographics, underlying diseases, treatments, and laboratory data were collected. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to explore the risk factors associated with secondary bacterial, fungal or viral pulmonary infection and co-infection. Results: A total of 322 older patients with COVID-19 were enrolled. The incidence of secondary bacterial, fungal or viral pulmonary infection and co-infection was 27.3% (88/322) and 7.5% (24/322), respectively. The overall in-hospital mortality of all patients was 32.9% (106/322), and the in-hospital mortality among patients who acquired with secondary pulmonary infection and co-infection was 57.0% (57/100). A total of 23.9% (77/322) of patients were admitted to ICU within 48 h of hospitalization. The incidence of secondary pulmonary infection and co-infection among patients admitted to the ICU was 50.6% (39/77) and 13.0% (10/77), respectively. The overall in-hospital mortality of ICU patients was 48.1% (37/77), and the in-hospital mortality of ICU patients acquired with secondary pulmonary infection and co-infection was 61.4% (27/44). A total of 83.5% (269/322) of the included patients received empirical antibiotic therapy before positive Clinical Microbiology results. Influenza A virus (the vast majority were the H3N2 subtype) was the most common community acquired pathogen for co-infection. While A. baumannii, K. pneumoniae, and P. aeruginosa were the common hospital acquired pathogens for co-infection and secondary pulmonary infection. The incidence of Carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacilli (CR-GNB) infections was high, and the mortality reached 76.9%. Predictors of secondary pulmonary infection and co-infection were ICU admission within 48 h of hospitalization, cerebrovascular diseases, critical COVID-19, and PCT > 0.5 ng/mL.
Ethics statement The studies involving humans were approved by the Ethics Committee of Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China (Approval No. 2023-yan-090) . The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board waived the requirement of written informed consent for participation from the participants or the participants' legal guardians/next of kin because Due to the retrospective observational study and the confidentiality of patient information.
Author contributions CZ: Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing -original draft. YJ: Writing -review and editing, Data curation. LS: Data curation, Writing -review and editing. HL: Conceptualization, Writingreview and editing. XL: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing -review and editing. LH: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing -review and editing.
Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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