The following is a summary of “Different epidemiology of bloodstream infections in COVID-19 compared to non-COVID-19 critically ill patients: a descriptive analysis of the Eurobact II study” published in the October 2022 issue of Critical Care by Buetti, et al.
The goal of the study was to find out how hospital-acquired bloodstream infections (HABSIs) spread among critically ill COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients and how they turned out. Researchers used information from the Eurobact II study, a prospective observational multi-continental cohort study on HABSI treated in the ICU. For this study, they chose centers where both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 critically ill patients were treated. Next, they did descriptive statistics on COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients to find out what they were like, where the infection came from, and how the microorganisms were spread. Finally, investigators used multivariable fragility Cox models to look at the link between COVID-19 status and death.
There were 53 centers from 19 countries on all 5 continents that could apply. Overall, 829 people with HABSI were treated. The median age was 65 years (IQR: 55–74), and 538 (64.9%) were men. There were 252 (30.4%) COVID-19 patients and 577 (69.6%) patients who were not COVID-19. Both groups had the same time between being admitted to the hospital and getting HABSI. COVID-19 patients were more likely to have respiratory sources (40.1% vs. 26.0%, P<0.0001) and primary HABSI (25.4% vs. 17.2%, P=0.006). Enterococcal (20.5% vs. 9%) and Acinetobacter spp. (18.8% vs. 13.6%) HABSIs were more common in COVID-19 patients. Patients with bacterial COVID-19 had a higher risk of dying than patients without COVID-19 (HR 1.91, 95% CI 1.49–2.45).
Study group showed that the spread of HABSI was different among COVID-19 patients and other patients. COVID-19 patients mostly had HABSI caused by enterococci. Patients with COVID-19 HABSI had a higher chance of dying.
Source: ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-022-04166-y
