Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease (Dec 2021)

Role of blood urea nitrogen and serum albumin ratio in predicting severity of community acquired pneumonia (CAP)

  • Mehul Agarwal,
  • Madhur Joshi,
  • Manohar Gupta,
  • Neha Bharti,
  • Amartya Chakraborti,
  • Maldev Sonigra

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/monaldi.2021.2091

Abstract

Read online

Blood urea nitrogen and serum albumin levels are independent risk factors for poor clinical outcome in CAP. However, there is a paucity in the literature on the role of Blood urea nitrogen and albumin ratio(B/A) in CAP. This was a prospective observational study in which 112 admitted patients with the diagnosis of CAP underwent routine blood examinations, ABG, procalcitonin and Chest X-ray. Univariate analysis among various risk factors, CURB-65 scores, blood parameters including B/A ratios and clinical outcomes were carried out followed by multiple logistic regression. Cox regression was done to look at B/A values and time to mortality. In the logistic regression, age, CURB -65 score, B/A ratio and procalcitonin came out to be independent risk factors for ICU admission and mortality. Odds ratio of B/A in predicting mortality and ICU admission came out to be 67.8 (49.2-95.4) and 11.2 (8.4-14), respectively. Cox regression showed B/A values were also found to have a statistically significant relationship with time to mortality (p=0.001). B/A ratio has the potential to become a veritable predictor of poor clinical outcomes in patients with CAP.

Keywords