Influence of pseudomonas aeruginosa on exacerbation in patients with bronchiectasis.
BACKGROUND
A majority of the studies done on the western population have shown that Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes many severe infections in patients with bronchiectasis as compared to other pathogens. There is scarcity of similar data from the Asian population.


METHODS
A prospective study was undertaken to identify the various pathogens isolated from the respiratory samples of 117 patients with bronchiectasis from south India and to compare the clinicomicrobiological profile of infections caused by P. aeruginosa and other respiratory pathogens.


RESULTS
The respiratory pathogens were isolated from 63 (53.8%) patients. P. aeruginosa was the most common isolate (46.0%) followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (14.3%) and other pathogenic bacteria. Patients included in the P. aeruginosa group had a higher number of exacerbations (p: 0.008), greater number of hospital admissions (p: 0.007), a prolonged hospital stay (p: 0.03), and poor lung function, compared to the patients infected with the non-Pseudomonas group.


CONCLUSIONS
It is necessary to investigate the etiology of respiratory tract infections among bronchiectasis patients followed by the prompt management of cases diagnosed with P. aeruginosa infections, so as to lower the morbidity and have a better prognosis.
Department of Microbiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India.
Kiran
K
Chawla
Department of Microbiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India.
Shashidhar
S
Vishwanath
Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India.
Mohan K
MK
Manu
Department of Microbiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India.
Bernaitis
B
Lazer
Bronchiectasis; Morbidity; Pseudomonas aeruginosa