Risk Factors for Endogenous Endophthalmitis in Hospitalized Patients with Candida Fungemia

To use the 2002 through 2014 National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database to identify risk factors for endogenous endophthalmitis (EE) in hospitalized patients with candidemia.

Retrospective, cross-sectional study.

Hospitalized patients sampled in the NIS database.

The NIS database (2002-2014) was used to identify patients with candidemia and EE and their comorbidities. Descriptive analysis was performed with chi-square testing, and risk factors for EE were identified using logistic regression analysis. Chi-square testing and regression analysis were performed using IBM SPSS software version 23 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY) and R package software version 3.4.3 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria), respectively.

Diagnosis of EE in hospitalized patients with candidemia.

We identified 98 783 hospitalized patients with candidemia; 529 patients (0.5%) had concurrent EE. Men constituted 48.0% of patients who did not demonstrate EE and 45.1% of those who did (P = 0.186). The average age of fungemia patients with EE was 54.6 years and of those without EE was 58.2 years (P < 0.001). Most EE cases (58.6%) occurred in patients 21 to 64 years of age. Hispanic (odds ratio [OR], 1.58), Asian or Pacific Islander (OR, 3.51), and Native American (OR, 5.22) patients with candidemia were at an increased risk of EE developing compared with White patients. Candida endocarditis (OR, 1.84), cirrhosis (OR, 1.93), diabetes with chronic complications (OR, 1.96), intravenous drug use (OR, 3.12), radiation therapy (OR, 5.28), and solid organ transplantation (OR, 2.48) increased the risk of seeding the infection into the eye. Conversely, chronic kidney disease (OR, 0.53) and invasive mechanical intubation (OR, 0.43) were associated with a decreased risk of EE. The mortality of inpatients with candidemia was significantly lower in the EE group (2.8% vs. 15.6%; P < 0.001).

Systemic comorbidities that increased the risk of EE in candidemia included endocarditis, cirrhosis, diabetes with chronic complications, intravenous drug use, radiation therapy, and solid organ transplantation. Racial disparity was observed with Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans at a higher risk than Whites of being diagnosed with EE in the setting of Candida fungemia.