A meta-analysis of Legionella pneumophila contamination in hospital water systems

Legionella pneumophila is a common cause of community-acquired pneumonia. We aimed to determine the pooled rates of L pneumophila contamination in the water environment of the hospital.

We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, WangFang and Science Direct, The Cochrane Library, and Science Finder, for relevant studies published until December 2022. Stata 16.0 software was used to determine pooled contamination rates, publication bias, and subgroup analysis.

Forty-eight eligible articles with a total of 23,640 samples of water were evaluated, and the prevalence of L pneumophila was 41.6%. The results of the subgroup analysis showed that the pollution rate of L pneumophila in hot water (47.6%) was higher than that in other water bodies. The rates of L pneumophila contamination were higher in developed countries (45.2%), culture methods (42.3%), published between 1985 and 2015 (42.9%), and studies with a sample size of less than 100 (53.0%).

L pneumophila contamination in medical institutions is still very serious and should be paid attention to, especially in developed countries and hot water tanks.