Delayed Administration of Antibiotics and Mortality in Patients With Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Abstract

Study objective: Previous studies have demonstrated a crude association between the time to first antibiotic dose and mortality in patients with community-acquired pneumonia. We hypothesize that time to first antibiotic dose may affect mortality, particularly for patients at high risk of death, that is, patients hypoxic on presentation, patients in Pneumonia Severity Index class IV or V, and patients older than 65 years at our institution. Methods: We reviewed data from a prospectively collected database of patients with community-acquired pneumonia, excluding patients who had received antibiotics before presentation and palliative patients not receiving antibiotics. We examined time to firs..