Patients with aspiration pneumonia had more complications, greater length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and higher hospital costs compared with patients who had nonaspiration pneumonia, according to recent research.
Researchers analyzed 27,455 patients with neurologic impairment aged 1 to 18 years who were diagnosed with pneumonia from 2007 to 2012 across 40 children’s hospitals. The researchers recorded whether the patients had aspiration (9.7%) or nonaspiration pneumonia and examined the records for outcomes such as length of stay, 30-day readmission and acute respiratory failure.
They found that 34% of patients with aspiration pneumonia had complications vs. 15.2% of those who had nonaspiration pneumonia. Patients with aspiration pneumonia stayed in the hospital a median of 5 days compared with 3 days in patients with nonaspiration pneumonia.
Complication Rates Greater Among Patients with Aspiration Pneumonia
