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Daisuke Kobayashi,1,2 Yuichiro Shindo,2 Ryota Ito,2,3 Mai Iwaki,4,5 Junya Okumura,2,6 Toshihiro Sakakibara,2,7 Ikuo Yamaguchi,8 Tetsuya Yagi,9 Tomohiko Ogasawara,4 Yasuteru Sugino,6 Hiroyuki Taniguchi,7 Hiroshi Saito,10 Hideo Saka,11 Takashi Kawamura,1 Yoshinori Hasegawa2 On behalf of the Central Japan Lung Study Group 1Kyoto University Health Service, Kyoto, Japan; 2Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan; 3Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; 4Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nagoya Daini Red Cross Hospital, Nagoya, Japan; 5Department of Respiratory Medicine, Kasugai Municipal Hospital, Kasugai, Japan; 6Department of Respiratory Medicine, Toyota Memorial Hospital, Toyota, Japan; 7Department of Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, Tosei General Hospital, Seto, Japan; 8Department of Central Laboratory, Toyohashi Municipal Hospital, Toyohashi, Japan; 9Department of Infectious Diseases, Nagoya University Hospital, Nagoya, Japan; 10Department of Respiratory Medicine, Aichi Cancer Center Aichi Hospital, Okazaki, Japan; 11Department of Respiratory Medicine, National Hospital Organization, Nagoya Medical Center, Nagoya, Japan Background: Appropriate initial antibiotic treatment and avoiding administration of unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics are important for the treatment of pneumonia. To achieve this, assessment of risk for drug-resistant pathogens (DRPs) at diagnosis is essential.Purpose: The aim of this study was to validate a predictive rule for DRPs that we previously proposed (the community-acquired pneumonia drug-resistant pathogen [CAP-DRP] rule), comparing several other predictive methods.Patients and methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in hospitalized patients with community-onset pneumonia at four institutions in Japan. Pathogens identified as not susceptible to ceftriaxone, ampicillin–sulbactam, macrolides, and respiratory fluoroquinolones were defined as CAP-DRPs.Results: CAP-DRPs were identified in 73 (10.1%) of 721 patients analyzed. The CAP-DRP rule differentiated low vs high risk of CAP-DRP at the threshold of ≥3 points or 2 points plus any of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus specific factors with a sensitivity of 0.45, specificity of 0.87, positive predictive value of 0.47, negative predictive value of 0.87, and accuracy of 0.79. Its discrimination performance, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, was 0.73 (95% confidence interval 0.66–0.79). Specificity of the CAP-DRP rule against CAP-DRPs was the highest among the six predictive rules tested.Conclusion: The performance of the predictive rules and criteria for CAP-DRPs was limited. However, the CAP-DRP rule yielded high specificity and could specify patients who should be treated with non-broad-spectrum antibiotics, eg, a non-pseudomonal β-lactam plus a macrolide, more precisely. Keywords: antibiotic resistance, algorithms, community-acquired pneumonia, healthcare-associated pneumonia

Abstract: Background: Reducing near‐fatal asthma exacerbations is a critical problem in asthma management. Objectives: To determine patterns of factors preceding asthma exacerbations in a real‐world setting. Methods: In a nationwide prospective study of 190 patients who had experienced near‐fatal asthma exacerbation, cluster analysis was performed using asthma symptoms over the 2‐week period before admission. Results: Three distinct clusters of symptoms were defined employing the self‐reporting of a visual analogue scale. Cluster A (42.1%): rapid worsening within 7.4 hours from moderate attack to admission, young to middle‐aged patients with low Body mass index and tendency to depression who had stopped anti‐asthma medications, smoked, and hypersensitive to environmental triggers and furred pets. Cluster B (40.0%): fairly rapid worsening within 48 hours, mostly middle‐aged and older, relatively good inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) or ICS/long‐acting beta‐agonist (LABA) compliance, and low perception of dyspnea. Cluster C (17.9%): slow worsening over 10 days before admission, high perception of dyspnea, smokers, and chronic daily mild‐moderate symptoms. There were no differences in overuse of short‐acting beta‐agonists, baseline asthma severity, or outcomes after admission for patients in these 3 clusters. Conclusion: To reduce severe or life‐threatening asthma exacerbation, personalized asthma management plans should be considered for each cluster. Improvement of ICS and ICS/LABA compliance and cessation of smoking are important in cluster A. To compensate for low perception of dyspnea, asthma monitoring of peak expiratory flow rate and/or exhaled nitric oxide would be useful for patients in cluster B. Avoidance of environmental triggers, increase usual therapy, or new anti‐type 2 response‐targeted therapies should be considered for cluster C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]