Neumonía asociada a ventilación mecánica en pacientes con neumonía grave por SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with COVID-19 can progress to severe acute respiratory failure and require invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). The most frequent complication in these patients is ventilator- associated pneumonia (VAP), with higher reported incidences than in the pre-COVID era. The objec- tive of this study is to report the prevalence, incidence rate and microbiology of VAP in patients on IMV with COVID-19. Methods: Patients with severe pneumonia and PCR (+) for SARS-CoV-2 who were admitted to IMV between march and july 2021 at the Instituto Nacional del Tórax (Chile) were included. Demographic, clinical and laboratory data from electronic records were collected. Cases of pneumonia associated with mechanical ventilation were recorded and characterized. Results: 112 pa- tients were included, 42.8% of them presented VAP with an incidence rate of 28.8/1,000 IMV days. The most frequent isolated microorganisms were Klebsiella pneumoniae (29.6%), Staphylococcus aureus (21.8%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (12.5%). Patients who underwent VAP spent almost twice as long on IMV, although they had not increase in mortality. Conclusion: VAP is a common complication in patients with severe pneumonia associated with COVID-19. The microbiology of these entities has not changed from the pre-pandemic era. These results become relevant in the initiation and suspension of antibiotics in this group of patients.