Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Jun 9, 2024; 13(2): 91314
Published online Jun 9, 2024. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v13.i2.91314
Community-acquired pneumonia: The importance of the early detection of drug-resistant organisms
Sai Doppalapudi, Muhammad Adrish
Sai Doppalapudi, Department of Medicine, Bronx Care Health System, New York Affiliated with The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Muhammad Adrish, Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, United States
Author contributions: Both Doppalapudi S and Adrish M were involved in conceptualization, data collection, writing the manuscript, and revising the final draft.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Muhammad Adrish, FCCP, MD, Associate Professor, Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, 1504 Taub Loop, Houston, TX 77030, United States. aadrish@hotmail.com
Received: December 26, 2023
Revised: March 14, 2024
Accepted: April 22, 2024
Published online: June 9, 2024
Processing time: 159 Days and 13 Hours
Abstract

Pneumonia is a disease associated with significant healthcare burden with over 1.5 million hospitalizations annually and is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. While community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is generally considered an acute time-limited illness, it is associated with high long-term mortality, with nearly one-third of patients requiring hospitalization dying within one year. An increasing trend of detecting multidrug-resistant (MDR) organisms causing CAP has been observed, especially in the Western world. In this editorial, we discuss about a publication by Jatteppanavar et al which reported that a case of a MDR organism was the culprit in developing pneumonia, bacteremia, and infective endocarditis that led to the patient’s death. The early detection of these resistant organisms helps improve patient outcomes. Significant advances have been made in the biotechnological and research space, but preventive measures, diagnostic techniques, and treatment strategies need to be developed.

Keywords: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; Polymerase chain reaction; Antibiotic resistance; Bacterial colonization; Infective endocarditis

Core Tip: This editorial focuses on community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and the importance of the early detection of drug-resistant organisms. CAP is considered an acute time-limited illness and is associated with high long-term mortality, with nearly one-third of patients requiring hospitalization dying within one year. There is an increasing trend of detecting multidrug-resistant organisms causing CAP especially in the Western world. It has been shown that the early detection of these resistant organisms helps improve patient outcomes. Moreover, significant advances have been made in the biotechnological and research space, but preventive measures, diagnostic techniques, and treatment strategies need to be further developed.