TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of the clinico-microbiological characteristics of culture-positive and culture-negative septic pulmonary embolism
T2 - A 10-year retrospective study
AU - Nishimura, Yoshito
AU - Hagiya, Hideharu
AU - Obika, Mikako
AU - Otsuka, Fumio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Septic pulmonary embolism (SPE) is a rare yet serious infectious disorder with nonspecific clinical findings due to microorganism-containing emboli disseminating from extrapulmonary infectious foci. It is unknown whether a positive blood culture correlates with a worse clinical outcome. We compared the clinical and microbiologic characteristics of patients with SPE divided into the culture-positive group and the culture-negative one. This study was a retrospective observational study of the patients diagnosed with SPE and treated in an academic hospital from April 2010 to May 2020. We identified six culture-positive and four culture-negative patients with SPE during the study period. The culture-positive group had significantly longer periods of hospitalization (median: 75 days, range: 45–125 days) than the culture-negative group (median: 14.5 days, range: 3–43 days) (p < 0.05), as well as significantly elevated serum C-reactive protein and procalcitonin. Patients with culture-negative SPE more commonly had odontogenic infections as the primary infectious foci. Our study highlights the importance of giving extra attention to SPE patients who have a positive blood culture, as they may have worse clinical outcomes. Physicians need to collaborate with dentists when faced with patients with culture-negative SPE, since they may have primary odontogenic infections.
AB - Septic pulmonary embolism (SPE) is a rare yet serious infectious disorder with nonspecific clinical findings due to microorganism-containing emboli disseminating from extrapulmonary infectious foci. It is unknown whether a positive blood culture correlates with a worse clinical outcome. We compared the clinical and microbiologic characteristics of patients with SPE divided into the culture-positive group and the culture-negative one. This study was a retrospective observational study of the patients diagnosed with SPE and treated in an academic hospital from April 2010 to May 2020. We identified six culture-positive and four culture-negative patients with SPE during the study period. The culture-positive group had significantly longer periods of hospitalization (median: 75 days, range: 45–125 days) than the culture-negative group (median: 14.5 days, range: 3–43 days) (p < 0.05), as well as significantly elevated serum C-reactive protein and procalcitonin. Patients with culture-negative SPE more commonly had odontogenic infections as the primary infectious foci. Our study highlights the importance of giving extra attention to SPE patients who have a positive blood culture, as they may have worse clinical outcomes. Physicians need to collaborate with dentists when faced with patients with culture-negative SPE, since they may have primary odontogenic infections.
KW - Blood culture
KW - Procalcitonin
KW - Septic pulmonary embolism
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U2 - 10.3390/pathogens9120995
DO - 10.3390/pathogens9120995
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85096664653
VL - 9
SP - 1
EP - 9
JO - Pathogens
JF - Pathogens
SN - 2076-0817
IS - 12
M1 - 995
ER -