Prevalence and Serotype of Streptococcus Pneumoniae in Hospitalized Adult With Community-Acquired Pneumonia: Isolated From Blood, Nasopharyngeal Swab, Urine, and/or Sputum

Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs by bacteria with symptoms of high fever accompanied by productive cough, rapid breathing (frequency of breath >50 times/minutes), tightness, and other symptoms (headache, restlessness, and reduced appetite). Pneumonia is a health problem in the world due to high morbidity and mortality. Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the etiology in severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and accounts for about 60-75% of cases and is likely to be the leading cause of unknown etiologic pneumonia. In Indonesia, studies regarding the prevalence of Streptococcus pneumoniae as the cause of CAP are still very rare. Previous study (Amanda,2020) found that Streptococcus pneumoniae prevalence isolated from CSF and blood in adult CAP patients is very low (around 14% from 100 patients). Therefore, there is still a need for further investigation in S. pneumoniae prevalence among hospitalized CAP by utilizing different detection methods in Indonesia.

Diagnosis relies upon microbiological confirmation of Streptococcus pneumoniae in patients with clinical and radiological features of pneumonia. Blood culture remains the gold standard for confirmation of Streptococcus pneumoniae and only occurs in 15-30% of cases. Furthermore, treatment with antibiotics before specimen sampling reduces the sensitivity in the majority of the cases. Urine antigen detection is a non-invasive test to detect C polysaccharide antigen in urine has good sensitivity and very specific in the adult patient with Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. A meta-analysis and systematic review in 2013 mentioned the sensitivity value of urine-based pneumococcal antigen reached 67.6% (CI 95%) and specificity 98.1% (CI 95%). In addition, a study by Molinos et al. (2015) found out that 21% of all caused CAP patients are positive with S. pneumoniae detected by urine antigen test.

Antibiotics as a therapy of CAP showed high levels of resistance. Yu et al (2011) reported Streptococcus pneumoniae as the main cause of community-acquired pneumonia has been resistance to antibiotics of penicillin (in vitro), macrolides, and quinolones. Early detection of the causative pathogen can reduce the incidence of antibiotic resistance and the usage of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

To investigators' knowledge, this study will be the first to assess and evaluate multiple methods for the detection of S. pneumoniae by collecting and testing respiratory and non-respiratory samples from the hospitalized adult with CAP in Indonesia.