The frequency of stroke-acquired pneumonia in patients admitted to ICU with Cerebrovascular accident (CVA)

Introduction: Stroke is themost prevalent disorder. In our country, it can cause significant mortality and morbidity due to its associated complications such asstroke-associated pneumonia (SAP). Stroke can be fatal directly due to affecting the respiratory system andneurological damage. Stroke-acquired pneumonia is defined as any respiratory tract infection acquired within 7 days of stroke. Objective:To find out the actual frequency of stroke-acquired pneumonia in ICU patients. Study Design:Descriptive case series. Setting:Department of Medicine, DHQ Teaching Hospital, Sargodha.Duration:Six months from 15thOctober 2018 to 15thApril 2019.Materials and Methods:In this study, the cases of either gender or aged30 to 70 years suffering from stroke within 12 hours were included. SAP was labelled based onfever, cough,and non-homogenous opacities on chest X-ray. Results:Current study comprises about 160 cases of stroke and out of these 78 were (48.75%) females and 82 (51.25%) were males. The mean duration of stroke was 7.05±2.54 hours and the average age of the subjects was 54.24±7.15 years. They were 30 (18.75%) cases that had a history of smoking, 28 (17.50%) had HTN,and 35 (21.88%) cases that had DM. Stroke-acquired pneumonia (SAP) was seen in 20 (12.50%) of the cases. SAP was seen in 12 (15.38%) female cases as compared to 8 (9.75%) males with p= 0.34. SAP was more seen in cases with DM where this was observed in 7 (20%) of the cases as compared to 13 (10.4%) with no DM with p= 0.15. SAP was seen in 5 (17.85%) cases with HTN and 4 (13.33%) cases with a history of smoking with p valuesof 0.35 and 1.0 respectively. SAP was seen in 15 (14.42%) cases with a duration of stroke of 6-12 hours in contrast to 5 (8.92%) cases with a duration less than this with p= 0.45. Conclusion:SAP is not infrequent and is found in more than 1 out of every 10 cases and the cases of SAP were found more in females and those who have a history of DM, HTN,and a duration of stroke of 6 to 12 hours; though none of this variable was found statistically significant. Keywords:SAP, HTN, DM, Smoking