Diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia: comparison between ante-mortem and post-mortem cultures in trauma...

To evaluate the diagnostic utility of ante-mortem tracheal aspirates for diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Trauma victims represent an otherwise healthy population, who are on multiple invasive life-support devices, which predispose them to severe infections like VAP. The diagnosis of VAP is challenging, due to the difficulty in obtaining a representative sample from lungs. We studied the diagnostic utility of tracheal aspirates by comparing its results with the post-mortem lung cultures.

A total of 106 fatal trauma patients were included in the study. Lung samples and cardiac blood were taken for culture at the time of autopsy. The results of ante-mortem and post-mortem cultures were compared.

Septicemia was the cause of death in 51 (48%) of the fatal cases and VAP was identified in 36 (34%) cases. A total of 96 (90.5%) cases had pathogens isolated from lung samples. In 62 (58%) cases, the same organism was isolated from ante-mortem and post-mortem respiratory samples.

Culture results of a properly collected tracheal aspirate should be taken into consideration along with Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC's) diagnostic criteria to maximise the diagnosis of VAP.