Predicting pneumonia mortality using CURB-65, PSI, and patient characteristics in patients presenting to the emergency department of a comprehensive cancer center

The prognostic accuracy of the CURB-65 criteria and pneumonia severity index (PSI) in immunocompromised cancer patients with pneumonia is unknown. We sought to determine whether CURB-65 and PSI predict 28-day mortality in cancer patients with pneumonia, and identify other factors that predispose cancer patients with pneumonia to a high mortality risk. We assessed sensitivities, specificities, predictive values, and areas under the receiver operating curve area under the curve (AUC) of the CURB-65 and PSI in predicting the 28-day mortality of cancer patients presenting to our institution's emergency department with pneumonia. We used the DeLong and Clarke-Pearson approach to determine whether the addition of other risk factors improved the scales' performances. The overall and pneumonia-related 28-day mortality rates were 20.2% (n = 44) and 17.4% (n = 38), respectively. In predicting 28-day mortality, the CURB-65 score had sensitivity of 45% and specificity of 81%, and the PSI score had sensitivity of 82% and specificity of 34%. The CURB-65 and PSI discriminated poorly between fatal and nonfatal pneumonia cases (AUCs, 0.664 and 0.658, respectively; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57-0.75 for each). The addition of radiation therapy (RT) within 4 weeks and stem cell transplant (SCT) significantly improved the AUCs of the CURB-65 (0.75; 95% CI, 0.67-0.83) and PSI (0.73; 95% CI, 0.65-0.82). Inadequate performances of CURB-65 and PSI demonstrate that a tool for predicting pneumonia-related mortality in cancer patients and other immunocompromised populations is needed. Pneumonia patients who have undergone recent RT or (SCT) are at a high risk of dying from pneumonia and require special consideration when assessing pneumonia-related mortality risk.