ABSTRACT
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a common causative pathogen of intra-abdominal infection with concomitant bacteraemia, leading to a significant mortality risk. The time to positivity (TTP) of blood culture is postulated to be a prognostic factor in bacteraemia caused by other species. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of TTP in these patients. The single-centred, retrospective, observational cohort study was conducted between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021. All adult emergency department patients with diagnosis of intra-abdominal infection and underwent blood culture collection which yield K. pneumoniae during this period were enrolled. A total of 196 patients were included in the study. The overall 30-day mortality rate was 12.2% (24/196), and the median TTP of the studied cohort was 12.3 h (10.5–15.8 h). TTP revealed a moderate 30-day mortality discriminative ability (area under the curve 0.73, p < 0.001). Compared with the late TTP group (>12 h, N = 109), patients in the early TTP (≤12 h, N = 87) group had a significantly higher risk of 30-day morality (21.8% vs. 4.6%, p < 0.01) and other adverse outcomes. Furthermore, TTP (odds ratio [OR] = 0.79, p = 0.02), Pitt bacteraemia score (OR = 1.30, p = 0.03), and implementation of source control (OR = 0.06, p < 0.01) were identified as independent factors related to 30-day mortality risk in patients with intra-abdominal infection and K. pneumoniae bacteraemia. Therefore, physicians can use TTP for prognosis stratification in these patients.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Author contributions
Yong-Ye Yang: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft
I-Ting Tsai: Methodology, Writing – original draft
Chung-Hsu Lai: Visualization, Formal analysis
Chih-Ping Chen: Data curation, Visualization
Chia‐Chi Chen: Data curation, Software
Yin-Chou Hsu: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing
Data availability statement
The datasets used and/or analysed during the present study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.