Bacteremia in Afebrile Community-Acquired Pneumonia Has Serious Consequences

Community acquired pneumonia (CAP), a common cause of sepsis, is also a leading cause of infection-related death. Although bacteremia occurs in some CAP cases, blood cultures are commonly drawn only if the patient is febrile as lack of fever is thought to lower the likelihood of detecting pathogens in the bloodstream. Indeed, current guidelines discourage routinely obtaining blood cultures in hospitalized patients with CAP. Is this practice reasonable? Researchers in Germany retrospectively analyzed the clinical characteristics of patients with diagnoses of CAP.

Among 4349 patients hospitalized for CAP diagnosed by radiologically confirmed new pulmonary infiltrate and at least one additional sign of cough, purulent sputum, fever >37.8°C, or …