Nutritional status and mortality in community acquired pneumonia

Pneumonias are a major cause of morbidity and mortality and their prognosis depends on many factors including nutritional status. This study analyzed the relationship between malnutrition and the risk of death in Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) patients. This is a prospective observational study. The Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) was used as a screening tool to appraise the nutritional status. Ninety-eight patients with CAP requiring hospitalization were included consecutively from October 2004 to September 2006. The clinical, bacteriological and laboratory features were recorded. Patient's nutritional condition was assessed using the SGA. The monitoring was performed until discharge, death or shunt. Persistent cough or fever, the presence of pleural effusion, malignancies or long hospitalization were associated with worse prognosis. Mortality increased in proportion to the degree of malnutrition. Thirty two CAP patients (32.65%) were classified as SGA-category A; 44 (44.90%) as SGA-B, and 22 (22.45%) as SGA-C. Pneumonia resulted in death in 3/32 SGA-A (9.37%), 8/44 SGA-B (18.18%) and 10/22 SGA-C patients. SGA-C patients showed significantly higher odds ratios for death in comparison to SGA-A patients (OR = 6.085, CI95%: 1.071-34.591; p = 0.042). Considering death as the outcome variable, SGA-A class had the highest negative predictive value (0.906), while SGA-C class showed the highest positive predictive value (0.455). These results link the nutritional status to the NAC evolution prognostic. SGA provides a simple estimation of the nutritional status and it is a good predictor of the risk of death in CAP patients.