title: Cardiac diseases complicating community-acquired pneumonia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim is to evaluate basic mechanisms, prevalence, risk factors, outcomes, and potential treatments of cardiovascular events (CVEs) in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this review, we present a new model to evaluate the pathophysiology of cardiac disease in patients with pneumonia based on plaque-related events, such as acute myocardial infarction, versus plaque-unrelated events, such as arrhythmias and heart failure. CAP increases the risk for both plaque-related and plaque-unrelated events with an absolute rate of CVE across different cohorts that varies broadly from 10 to 30%. These complications may happen among both ambulatory patients and inpatients, either on admission or during hospitalization, and/or after discharge. CVEs represent a major cause for increased mortality in CAP patients, contributing to more than 30% of deaths at long-term follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  From a clinical perspective, especially during the first 24 h after hospitalization, CAP patients should be tested for the probability to have or develop during hospitalization a cardiac event. From a research point of view, there is an urgent need to prospectively evaluate cardioprotective interventions.
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Health Science, University of Milan-Bicocca, Respiratory Dept, AO San Gerardo, Monza, Italy bChief, Division of Infectious Diseases and Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aliberti
authors.forename: Julio A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ramirez
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000453:epidemiology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology; D017714:Community-Acquired Infections / Q000150:complications*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000453:epidemiology; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000150:complications*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors