Photo Credit: Rasi Bhadramani
The following is a summary of “Cardiovascular events after invasive pneumococcal disease: a retrospective cohort study,” published in the October 2024 issue of Infectious Disease by Dulfer et al.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to determine the factors associated with cardiovascular events (CVEs) within 1 year after admission in patients with invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and implications for patient care.
They examined adult patients from 4 Dutch hospitals with positive blood cultures for Streptococcus pneumoniae between 2012 and 2020 and collected disease characteristics and microbiological data from electronic patient files with primary outcomes of stroke and acute coronary syndromes (ACS).
The results showed that 4.2% of 914 eligible patients experienced a CVE within 1 year after the admission for IPD, while ACS mainly occurred in the first 2 weeks, and stroke developed throughout the follow-up. The ACS was positively associated with disease severity, but alcohol abuse was the sole independent predictor (odds ratio [OR] 3.840, 95% CI 1.108-13.303). Although stroke occurred in 6.3% of meningitis cases, a body temperature >39.5°C at admission was the best clinical predictor (OR 3.117 [1.154-8.423]). In the adult IPD population aged <70 years, pneumococcal serotypes were the primary predictors of ACS (7F; OR 15.733 [1.812-136.632]) and stroke (22F; OR 7.320 [1.193-44.903]).
They concluded that adverse CVEs were common after invasive pneumococcal disease diagnosis and warranted attention, particularly among the high-risk groups identified.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122400256X
