Cause-specific 5 Years Mortality-rate in Patients Treated for Severe Pneumonia in an ICU - a Retrospective Study

Patients with severe pneumonia who need treatment in an ICU have a high in-hospital mortality (16-46%). There are few studies which investigate the long-term mortality (> 1year) in patients after discharge from the hospital. There seems to be a higher mortality in this group compared to the general population. The cause(s) of this higher long-term mortality is unclear and few studies have investigated this problem.

We are going to investigate the 5 years mortality rate in this population of patients. We are also going to investigate the cause of death in the patients who are discharged from the hospital alive.

Inclusion criteria: Patients > 18 years. Primary diagnose: pneumonia, and the need of mechanical ventilation for at least 24 hours in an ICU. The patients who arrive at the ICU in Akershus University Hospital in the period from 01.01.1997 to 31.12.2006.

The datas are collected from the patients' journals and the local ICU register. Collecting data: Age, sex, comorbidity, SAPSII, mechanical ventilation time, stay in the ICU, stay in the hospital, ICU mortality, hospital mortality, 5 years mortality, type of pneumonia (bacteriology).

Time of death after discharge is collected from Norwegian National Registry. Cause of death after discharge is collected from Norwegian Institute of Public Health.