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Is ventilated hospital-acquired pneumonia a worse entity than ventilator-associated pneumonia?

Maria Sole Vallecoccia, Cristina Dominedò, Salvatore Lucio Cutuli, Ignacio Martín‐Loeches, Antoní Torres, Gennaro De Pascale

European Respiratory Review, 2020

53 citations

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Nosocomial pneumonia develops after ≥48 h of hospitalisation and is classified as ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP); the latter may require mechanical ventilation (V-HAP) or not (NV-HAP). MAIN FINDINGS: 14.5%, respectively). However, no differences in terms of pathophysiology, underlying microbiological pathways and subsequent therapy have been identified. International guidelines suggest specific flow charts to help clinicians in the therapeutic management of such diseases; however, there are no specific recommendations beyond VAP and HAP classification. HAP subtypes are scarcely considered as different entities and the lack of data from the clinical scenario limits any final conclusion. Hopefully, recent understanding of the pathophysiology of such diseases, as well as the discovery of new therapies, will improve the outcome associated with such pulmonary infections. CONCLUSION: Nosocomial pneumonia is a multifaced disease with features of pivotal interest in critical care medicine. Due to the worrisome data on mortality of patients with nosocomial pneumonia, further prospective studies focused on this topic are urgently needed.

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