Study Results from Nagasaki International University Update Understanding of Pneumonia (Utility of Blood Culture In Patients With Community-acquired Pneumonia: a Propensity Score-matched Analysis Based On a Japanese National Health Insurance …): Lung Diseases and Conditions – Pneumonia

2023 APR 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Information Technology Business Daily -- Investigators discuss new findings in Lung Diseases and Conditions - Pneumonia. According to news originating from Nagasaki, Japan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is an acute pulmonary parenchymal infection acquired outside the hospital. The utility of blood cultures in inpatients with CAP to reduce mortality and length of hospital stay is controversial.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Nagasaki International University, “This study aimed to determine the utility of blood cultures on the first day of hospital-ization for CAP inpatients and its influence on mortality, length of hospital stay, and antibiotics use. We con-ducted a fact-finding survey on the implementation of blood culture in inpatients with CAP in Japan. A pro-pensity score (PS)-matched analysis based on the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Check-ups of Japan database was conducted. Overall, 163173 patients were included in the analysis, and PS matching extracted 68104 pairs. The results of the comparison between the PS-matched blood culture group and PS-matched control group were as follows: mortality and length of hospital stay were significantly lower in the PS-matched blood culture group than in the control group. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) for in-hospital mortality with blood culture test was 0.73 (0.68-0.79). Moreover, for days of antibiotic usage, number of antibiotics used were significantly higher in the PS-matched blood culture group than that in the control group. Our findings indicated that performing a blood culture on the first day of hospitalization for inpatients with CAP was associated with reduced mortality. To our knowledge, this is the largest epidemiological study to assess the utility of blood culture in Japanese inpatients with CAP.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “This testing method shows potential for application in clinical practice.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Utility of Blood Culture In Patients With Community-acquired Pneumonia: a Propensity Score-matched Analysis Based On a Japanese National Health Insurance Database. Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 2023;46(2):237-244. Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin can be contacted at: Pharmaceutical Soc Japan, 2-12-15 Shibuya, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo, 150-0002, Japan.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Takahiro Muro, Nagasaki International University, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dept. of Pharmacy, Division of Medical Informatics, Nagasaki 8593298, Japan. Additional authors for this research include Fumihiko Ando, Marie Suehiro, Hiroo Nakagawa, Chieko Okuda, Takehiro Matsumoto, Koichi Izumikawa, Masayuki Honda and Hitoshi Sasaki.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1248/bpb.b22-00609. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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