"40% of Patients Developing Pneumonia After Hospitalization Receive Inappropriate Initial Antibiotics"

About 40% of pneumonia patients who developed the condition two days after hospitalization or use of a mechanical ventilator were initially prescribed inappropriate antibiotics.

On the 23rd, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), together with the Korean Academy of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, released the results of a policy research project on causative pathogens and antibiotic resistance patterns of adult hospital-acquired pneumonia. Hospital-acquired pneumonia refers to pneumonia occurring after 48 hours of hospitalization or after 48 hours of mechanical ventilator use. This study was conducted on 477,734 adult patients aged 19 and older who were admitted to 16 general and tertiary hospitals in Korea during the year 2019.

According to the study, among the subjects, 1,196 patients developed hospital-acquired pneumonia. The incidence rate was 2.50 per 1,000 patients. Among 517 patients with identified causative pathogens, 39.5% (204 patients) were due to inappropriate initial antibiotic use. Treatment failure occurred in 30.0% (359 patients) of hospital-acquired pneumonia cases, and among them, 28.7% died.

The risk of developing hospital-acquired pneumonia is higher in patients with underlying diseases. The extended hospitalization period and associated treatment costs due to hospital-acquired pneumonia amount to 28 billion to 45 billion dollars annually. The mortality rate ranges from 10% to 25.1%.

The KDCA explained, “If appropriate guidelines for preventing adult hospital-acquired pneumonia are followed, it is known to reduce hospital stay duration, mechanical ventilator use days, and costs.”

Accordingly, the KDCA published the “Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Antibiotic Use in Adult Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia” applicable to medical institutions at the general hospital level or higher. These guidelines consist of recommendations on 11 key items including diagnosis of adult hospital-acquired pneumonia, combination antibiotic therapy, and stepwise reduction and discontinuation of antibiotics.

They also include proper antibiotic selection, usage methods, and precautions, providing diagnostic and treatment directions that can be utilized in clinical settings.

Ji Young-mi, Director of the KDCA, stated, “These guidelines are based on domestic epidemiological data on hospital-acquired pneumonia and are significant in presenting more realistic treatment methods compared to foreign guidelines that have been used as clinical evidence.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.