Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2021 Oct 15;204(8):875-877.
doi: 10.1164/rccm.202107-1790ED.

Seek and Ye Shall Find: COVID-19 and Bacterial Superinfection

Georgios D Kitsios  1   2   3 , Alison Morris  1   2   4   5
Affiliations
Editorial

Seek and Ye Shall Find: COVID-19 and Bacterial Superinfection

Georgios D Kitsios et al. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Empiric versus bronchoscopy-guided antibiotic management for bacterial superinfections in coronavirus disease (COVID-19). (A) Possible scenarios for the clinical utility of empiric broad-spectrum antibiotics in the case of isolated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, superinfection by sensitive bacteria, and superinfection by resistant bacteria or fungi. (B) Bronchoscopy-guided antibiotic management as per the study by Pickens and colleagues (4). For early superinfections for which bronchoscopy was performed within 48 hours of intubation (for diagnosis of CAP or HAP), microbiologic studies of BAL samples revealed bacterial superinfections by mostly sensitive bacteria in 21% of subjects. For late superinfections for which bronchoscopy was performed in patients intubated for >48 hours (for diagnosis of VAP), bacterial superinfection was detected in 44% of subjects, allowing for targeted antibiotic prescriptions. CAP = community-acquired pneumonia; HAP = hospital-acquired pneumonia; VAP = ventilator-associated pneumonia.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Alhazzani W, Møller MH, Arabi YM, Loeb M, Gong MN, Fan E, et al. Surviving sepsis campaign: guidelines on the management of critically ill adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Crit Care Med. 2020;48:e440–e469. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Russell CD, Fairfield CJ, Drake TM, Turtle L, Seaton RA, Wootton DG, et al. ISARIC4C Investigators. Co-infections, secondary infections, and antimicrobial use in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 during the first pandemic wave from the ISARIC WHO CCP-UK study: a multicentre, prospective cohort study. Lancet Microbe. 2021;2:e354–e365. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Langford BJ, So M, Raybardhan S, Leung V, Soucy JR, Westwood D, et al. Antibiotic prescribing in patients with COVID-19: rapid review and meta-analysis. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2021;27:520–531. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pickens CO, Gao CA, Cuttica MJ, Smith SB, Pesce LL, Grant RA, et al. NU COVID Investigators. Bacterial superinfection pneumonia in patients mechanically ventilated for COVID-19 pneumonia. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Walter JM, Ren Z, Yacoub T, Reyfman PA, Shah RD, Abdala-Valencia H, et al. Multidimensional assessment of the host response in mechanically ventilated patients with suspected pneumonia. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2019;199:1225–1237. - PMC - PubMed