Clinical Presentation of Community-Acquired Legionella Pneumonia Identified by Universal Testing in an Endemic Area

Shruti Puri, Monique Boudreaux-Kelly, Jon D. Walker, Cornelius J. Clancy and Brooke K. Decker
Additional contact information
Shruti Puri: Division of Infectious Diseases, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA
Monique Boudreaux-Kelly: Statcore, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA 15240, USA
Jon D. Walker: Statcore, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA 15240, USA
Cornelius J. Clancy: Statcore, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA 15240, USA
Brooke K. Decker: Statcore, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA 15240, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 2, 1-6

Abstract: The rapid identification of Legionella pneumonia is essential to optimize patient treatment and outcomes, and to identify potential public health risks. Previous studies have identified clinical factors which are more common in Legionella than non- Legionella pneumonia, and scores have been developed to assist in diagnosing cases. Since a Legionella pneumonia outbreak at VA Pittsburgh in 2012, nearly all patients with pneumonia have been tested for Legionella . The purpose of this study was to evaluate distinguishing characteristics between Legionella and non- Legionella pneumonia with the application of universal testing for Legionella in all cases of community-acquired pneumonia. We performed a retrospective case-control study matching Legionella and non- Legionella pneumonia cases occurring in the same month. Between January 2013 and February 2016, 17 Legionella and 54 non- Legionella cases were identified and reviewed. No tested characteristics were significantly associated with Legionella cases after Bonferroni correction. Outcomes of Legionella and non- Legionella pneumonia were comparable. Therefore, in veterans who underwent routine Legionella testing in an endemic area, factors typically associated with Legionella pneumonia were non-discriminatory.

Keywords: Legionella; Legionnaires’ disease; Legionella pneumonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/2/533/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/2/533/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:2:p:533-:d:308756

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().