Abstract
Objective: Respiratory tract infections remain a common problem in clinical practice with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Portugal, pneumonia was the third leading death cause in 2018. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing concern about the burden of respiratory diseases and preventable risk factors. The present study started before the pandemic and its aim was to determine the occurrence of pneumonia/bronchopneumonia in a postmortem series and to characterize its circumstantial context.
Methods: A retrospective anatomopathological study was performed on cases with acute pneumonia/bronchopneumonia at the Medicolegal Portuguese Institute (2011-2017).
Results: In an autopsy series of 737 patients, 521 were male and 675 presented comorbidities. The mean age was 63.87 ± 19.8 years. The most common acquisition site was community (65.1%), as natural death (65.5%). Concerning the manner of death, most cases (48.0%) were sudden deaths, followed by accidents (29.2%). A statistically significant association was observed between the medicolegal etiology and the place of infection acquisition, with higher prevalence of natural obitus (91.0%) in community-acquired pneumonia/bronchopneumonia versus higher prevalence of violent obitus in hospital-acquired pneumonia/bronchopneumonia (82.1%) (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: Forensic anatomopathological postmortem data may contribute to better understand community and hospital pulmonary infections.
Keywords: bronchopneumonia; pneumonia; postmortem study.
【저자키워드】 Pneumonia, bronchopneumonia, postmortem study., 【초록키워드】 pandemic, Risk factors, COVID-19 pandemic, hospital, Infection, Comorbidities, pulmonary infections, Autopsy, Forensic, Prevalence, Respiratory disease, male, death, Community, age, morbidity and mortality, respiratory, etiology, Portugal, patients, Clinical practice, association, retrospective, deaths, acquisition, Occurrence, was performed, determine, contribute, statistically significant, Medicolegal, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19 pandemic,