[Study of prognostic factors and estimation of prognosis in patients with fungemia]

The estimation of prognosis is necessary in the treatment of fungemia because of its high mortality rate. We studied prognostic factors and estimated prognosis by scoring clinical and laboratory findings in 41 patients with fungemia treated at Tenri Hospital between 1976 and 1990.

Although the mortality rate was low (33%) in 18 patients in whom the route of infection had been an intravenous catheter or the urinary tract, it was high (91%) in 23 patients with other or unknown route of infection. The risk of death was high in patients with disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC), shock (systolic blood pressure > or = 90 mmHg), malnutrition (cholinesterase < 0.05 delta pH and albumin < or = 3.0 g/dl), renal failure (urea-N > or = 30 mg/dl and creatinine > or = 3.0 mg/dl), neutropenia (neutrophils < or = 500/microliters) or advanced age (age > or = 60 years old). Application scoring system taking into account of the presence or absence of DIC or shock, the degree of malnutrition, renal failure and neutropenia, and age (20 possible points) in 36 patients revealed that the scores of the 23 patients who died significantly different from those of the 13 survivors; score was less than 6 in every survivor (100%), while it was more than 6 in twenty-two (96%) of the patients who died. Seven of 10 patients with persistent fungal infection had greater than 15.

The prognosis of patients with fungemia is adversely influenced by the presence of DIC, shock, malnutrition, renal failure, neutropenia and advanced age, and the scoring of these clinical and laboratory findings is useful in the estimation of prognosis and detection of persistent fungal infection in these patients.