Evidence Hub

Derivation and external validation of community-acquired pneumonia subphenotypes in Southeast Asia: a secondary analysis of prospective cohort studies

T. Coston, Prapassorn Poolchanuan, J. E. Ross, L. Xia, L. Zelnick, V. Hantrakun, P. Chamnan, G. Wongsuvan et al.

EClinicalMedicine, 2025

953 participants

Abstract

Summary Background Identifying pneumonia subphenotypes in understudied populations can advance equitable personalized medicine for pneumonia care. We aimed to derive and validate subphenotypes of patients presenting with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in Southeast Asia. Methods This secondary analysis included three prospective cohorts conducted between March 2013 and April 2020. First, we performed latent class analysis to identify subphenotypes using clinical and laboratory variables in a prospective cohort of adults hospitalized with CAP in northeastern Thailand. Next, we compared clinical and biological features between the subphenotypes and then developed a parsimonious classifier model (PCM) for accurate subphenotype assignment. We then validated the accuracy of PCM subphenotype assignment in an external, multinational prospective cohort of patients hospitalized with CAP in Southeast Asia. Finally, in an exploratory analysis, we used the PCM to assign pneumonia subphenotypes in a prospective cohort of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States of America and evaluated a heterogeneity of treatment effect with corticosteroids. Findings Among 953 CAP patients in the Thai derivation cohort, we identified two subphenotypes: CAP1 (141, 15%) and CAP2 (812, 85%). We observed greater respiratory failure, 28-day mortality, inflammatory cytokines and metabolic derangements among CAP1 patients. A four-variable PCM discriminated subphenotype assignment in…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a secondary / pooled analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 953 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free