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  • Which individuals are at increased risk of pneumococcal disease and why? Impact of COPD, asthma, smoking, diabetes, and/or chronic heart disease on community-acquired pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease

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Which individuals are at increased risk of pneumococcal disease and why? Impact of COPD, asthma, smoking, diabetes, and/or chronic heart disease on community-acquired pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease
  1. Antoni Torres1,
  2. Francesco Blasi2,
  3. Nathalie Dartois3,
  4. Murat Akova4
  1. 1Servei de Pneumologia, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERes), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  2. 2Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, IRCCS Fondazione Cà Granda Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, Italy
  3. 3Pfizer Vaccines, Medical Affairs Europe, Paris, France
  4. 4Department of Infectious Diseases, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey
  1. Correspondence to Professor Antoni Torres, Servei de Pneumologia, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERes), University of Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain; ATORRES{at}clinic.ub.es

Abstract

Pneumococcal disease (including community-acquired pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease) poses a burden to the community all year round, especially in those with chronic underlying conditions. Individuals with COPD, asthma or who smoke, and those with chronic heart disease or diabetes mellitus have been shown to be at increased risk of pneumococcal disease compared with those without these risk factors. These conditions, and smoking, can also adversely affect patient outcomes, including short-term and long-term mortality rates, following pneumonia. Community-acquired pneumonia, and in particular pneumococcal pneumonia, is associated with a significant economic burden, especially in those who are hospitalised, and also has an impact on a patient's quality of life. Therefore, physicians should target individuals with COPD, asthma, heart disease or diabetes mellitus, and those who smoke, for pneumococcal vaccination at the earliest opportunity at any time of the year.

  • Bacterial Infection
  • Pneumonia
  • COPD Exacerbations
  • Asthma

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2015-206780

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