Chest
Clinical Investigations: InfectionC-Reactive Protein in Simple Community-Acquired Pneumonia
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
A retrospective study was performed using 40 random cases of simple community-acquired pneumonia in patients admitted to the respiratory unit. The cases were identified by a third party on the basis of the diagnosis on the discharge letter. The necessary information regarding physical signs, temperature, and investigations were extracted from the case notes. The presence of localizing chest signs (crackles or pleural rub) and new consolidation on the chest radiograph were required for
Results
Data are provided in the text in the following order: mean ± SEM, range, and lower/upper quartiles. The pneumonia group tended to be of a younger mean age than the COPD group, although this was not significant (p=0.19): pneumonia 64 ± 3 yr, 19–22, 53/76; purulent bronchitis 69 ± 2 yr, 50–85, 62/76 (95% CI for difference −3, 14 yr).
All cases of pneumonia clinically responded to antibiotic treatment and there were no fatalities. There was a considerable degree of overlap in both temperature and
Discussion
The results of the present study showed that CRP levels were considerably higher in patients with community-acquired pneumonia compared with those who had purulent bronchitis without pneumonia. If an arbitrary cut-off value of 100 mg/L is used, then in all but two cases (5%) of pneumonia, it is possible to separate patients with parenchymal lung sepsis from those with endobronchial infection. These findings are similar to previous data from Morley and Kushner4 who reported significantly higher
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Cited by (0)
This paper has been presented in abstract form as a spoken communication to the British Thoracic Society, Dublin, July 1993.