Development and validation of a survival prediction model in elder patients with community-acquired pneumonia: a...

To develop a prediction model predicting in-hospital mortality of elder patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

In this cohort study, data of 619 patients with CAP aged ≥ 65 years were obtained from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC III) 2001-2012 database. To establish the robustness of predictor variables, the sample dataset was randomly partitioned into a training set group and a testing set group (ratio: 6.5:3.5). The predictive factors were evaluated using multivariable logistic regression, and then a prediction model was constructed. The prediction model was compared with the widely used assessments: Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA), Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI), systolic blood pressure, oxygenation, age and respiratory rate (SOAR), CURB-65 scores using positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), accuracy (ACC), area under the curve (AUC) and 95% confidence interval (CI). The decision curve analysis (DCA) was used to assess the net benefit of the prediction model. Subgroup analysis based on the pathogen was developed.

Among 402 patients in the training set, 90 (24.63%) elderly CAP patients suffered from 30-day in-hospital mortality, with the median follow-up being 8 days. Hemoglobin/platelets ratio, age, respiratory rate, international normalized ratio, ventilation use, vasopressor use, red cell distribution width/blood urea nitrogen ratio, and Glasgow coma scales were identified as the predictive factors that affect the 30-day in-hospital mortality. The AUC values of the prediction model, the SOFA, SOAR, PSI and CURB-65 scores, were 0.751 (95% CI 0.749-0.752), 0.672 (95% CI 0.670-0.674), 0.607 (95% CI 0.605-0.609), 0.538 (95% CI 0.536-0.540), and 0.645 (95% CI 0.643-0.646), respectively. DCA result demonstrated that the prediction model could provide greater clinical net benefits to CAP patients admitted to the ICU. Concerning the pathogen, the prediction model also reported better predictive performance.

Our prediction model could predict the 30-day hospital mortality in elder patients with CAP and guide clinicians to identify the high-risk population.