Publication date: Jun 16, 2025
Background: Bacterial co-infections in patients with viral pneumonia might increase mortality. In this study we aimed to evaluate their effect on the mortality of critically ill patients with viral pneumonia. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and Cochrane from inception until 30 March 2025. We included studies comparing the effect on mortality of bacterial co-infections in critically ill patients with viral pneumonia. The risk of bias was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Results: From 3643 studies, 10 were included in our study with a total of 2862 COVID-19 patients and 4573 influenza patients. Seven studies were retrospective and three prospective. In total, 359/2862 of the COVID-19 and 904/4573 of the influenza patients were co-infected. Co-infections increased mortality in five out of the six studies evaluating COVID-19 patients and in two out of the eight studies evaluating influenza patients. Conclusions: The majority of the included studies were retrospective, which may limit the accuracy of these results. The exclusion of non-English literature may have led to the omission of relevant data. Based on our results, the impact of bacterial co-infection may be more pronounced in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia admitted to the ICU than in patients with influenza pneumonia.
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Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | Co-Infections |
| disease | MESH | Critically Ill |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | Influenza |
| disease | MESH | Pneumonia |
| disease | MESH | viral pneumonia |
| disease | MESH | Infections |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Coenzyme M |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Indoleacetic acid |
| disease | MESH | death |
| disease | MESH | Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome |
| disease | MESH | Respiratory failure |
| disease | MESH | syndrome |
| disease | MESH | hyaline membrane disease |
| disease | MESH | Virus Diseases |
| disease | MESH | superinfection |
| disease | MESH | severe acute respiratory syndrome |
| disease | MESH | middle east respiratory syndrome |
| disease | IDO | process |
| disease | IDO | pathogen |
| disease | MESH | etiology |
| disease | MESH | Bacterial Infections |
| disease | MESH | Community-Acquired Infections |