Early identification of severe community-acquired pneumonia: a retrospective observational study

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading cause of sepsis worldwide. Prompt identification of those at high risk of adverse outcomes improves survival by enabling early escalation of care. There are multiple severity assessment tools recommended for risk stratification; however, there is no consensus as to which tool should be used for those with CAP. We sought to assess whether pneumonia-specific, generic sepsis or early warning scores were most accurate at predicting adverse outcomes.

We performed a retrospective analysis of all cases of CAP admitted to a large, adult tertiary hospital in the UK between October 2014 and January 2016. All cases of CAP were eligible for inclusion and were reviewed by a senior respiratory physician to confirm the diagnosis. The association between the CURB65, Lac-CURB-65, quick Sequential (Sepsis-related) Organ Failure Assessment tool (qSOFA) score and National Early Warning Score (NEWS) at the time of admission and outcome measures including intensive care admission, length of hospital stay, in-hospital, 30-day, 90-day and 365-day all-cause mortality was assessed.

1545 cases were included with 30-day mortality of 19%. Increasing score was significantly associated with increased risk of poor outcomes for all four tools. Overall accuracy assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was significantly greater for the CURB65 and Lac-CURB-65 scores than qSOFA. At admission, a CURB65 ≥2, Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate, qSOFA ≥2 and NEWS ≥medium identified 85.0%, 96.4%, 40.3% and 79.0% of those who died within 30 days, respectively. A Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate had the highest negative predictive value: 95.6%.

All four scoring systems can stratify according to increasing risk in CAP; however, when a confident diagnosis of pneumonia can be made, these data support the use of pneumonia-specific tools rather than generic sepsis or early warning scores.