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Community-acquired Acinetobacter infections

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Abstract

Acinetobacter infections have been attracting increasing attention during recent years because they have become common in hospitalized patients, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting. However, the available literature suggests that the pathogen has another fearful potential; it can cause community-acquired infections. We searched PubMed and the reference lists of the initially identified articles and identified six case series regarding a total of 80 patients with community-acquired Acinetobacter baumannii infections; from these, 51 had pneumonia and 29 had bacteremia. Of these 80 patients, 45 (56%) died of the infection. In addition, we identified 26 case reports regarding 43 patients with community-acquired Acinetobacter infections; from these, 38 had pneumonia, two had meningitis, one had soft-tissue infection, one had ocular infection, and one had native valve endocarditis. Comorbidity was commonly present in patients reported in the case series as well as the case reports, mainly, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, renal disease, and diabetes mellitus; heavy smoking and excess alcohol consumption were also common. Most of the studies originated from China, Taiwan, and tropical Australia. We also identified 12 retrospective or prospective studies (seven from the Far East, two from Oceania, one from N. Guinea, one from Palestine, and one from USA/Canada) that reported the frequency of community-acquired Acinetobacter infections; the range of isolation of Acinetobacter from patients with community-acquired pneumonia in these studies was 1.3%–25.9%. In conclusion, most community-acquired Acinetobacter infections have been reported from countries with tropical or subtropical climate, and mainly affect patients with some form of comorbidity or are associated with heavy smoking and excess alcohol consumption.

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Acknowledgment

We thank Professor Li-Cher Loh MD, IMU Lung Research, International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for providing us with a relevant article for the review.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS), 9 Neapoleos Street, 151 23 Marousi, Athens, Greece

    M. E. Falagas, E. A. Karveli, I. Kelesidis & T. Kelesidis

  2. Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02 011, USA

    M. E. Falagas

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  1. M. E. Falagas
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  2. E. A. Karveli
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  3. I. Kelesidis
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  4. T. Kelesidis
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Correspondence to M. E. Falagas.

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Authors’ contributions

MEF had the idea for the article and supervised the various stages of its progress. EAK, IK, and TK performed the literature search, study selection, and data extraction. MEF and EAK wrote the first version of the manuscript. All authors approved its final version.

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Falagas, M.E., Karveli, E.A., Kelesidis, I. et al. Community-acquired Acinetobacter infections. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 26, 857–868 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-007-0365-6

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