Diabetics with pneumonia fare poorly

Outcomes for people with diabetes who develop pneumonia are worse than for non-diabetics, according to a report from Spain.

Diabetes is common among patients with pneumonia, the authors note in their article in the medical journal Chest. Dr. Miquel Falguera and colleagues from Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova, Lleida, investigated whether the clinical features of pneumonia, or the causative microorganisms and outcomes, are modified by the presence of diabetes.

They found that patients with diabetes had more severe pneumonia, and more often required hospitalization than non-diabetic patients.

Also, diabetes was independently associated with an increased risk of dying from the pneumonia, the investigators report.

The patients with diabetes who died of pneumonia had more underlying diseases and diabetes-related complications, but the microorganisms responsible for the pneumonia were the same in patients with and without diabetes, the report indicates.

"Our results suggest that this adverse outcome is more attributable to the underlying circumstances of patients than to uncommon microbiological findings," the authors conclude.

SOURCE: Chest, November 2005.