An-Najah Staff

Methods
It is an evaluation of post-stroke pneumonia complication among ischemic stroke patients attending a hospital in Malaysia from November 1, 2008 to April 30, 2009. Data included demographic information, risk factors and clinical characteristics. Functional outcome at discharge as measured by the Modified Barther Index (MBI) and in-hospital mortality were assessed. Poor outcome was defined as MBI < 75. SPSS version 15 was used for data analysis.

Results
A total of 256 patients were studied, of which 33 (12.9%) experienced pneumonia complication during hospitalization. The key baseline factors associated with the occurrence of post-stroke pneumonia were total anterior circulation infarct (P < 0.001), moderate and severe Glasgow Coma Scale (P < 0.001), atrial fibrillation (P = 0.035) and renal impairment (P < 0.001). Moreover, 24 (60%) of dead cases were suffering from pneumonia during hospitalization (P < 0.001). Additionally, after excluding the dead cases, 8 (9.2%) of patients discharged with poor functional outcome were having pneumonia during their hospital stay (P = 0.002).

Conclusions
Pneumonia is independently associated with ischemic stroke poor outcome. Identification of medical history and clinical characteristics on admission can assist clinicians to identify patients at higher risk of developing post-stroke pneumonia thus hastening the initiation of certain interventions to improve patient outcome.