The prognostic performance of qSOFA for community-acquired pneumonia

Background Quick Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) is a new screening system for sepsis. The prognostic performance of qSOFA for patients with suspected infections outside the intensive care unit (ICU) is similar to that of full SOFA; however, its performance for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) has not yet been evaluated in detail. The objectives of the present study were to compare the prognostic performance of qSOFA with existing pneumonia severity scores, such as CURB-65 (confusion, blood urea nitrogen > 19 mg/dL, respiratory rate ≥ 30/min, systolic blood pressure < 90 mmHg, or diastolic blood pressure ≤ 60 mmHg, age ≥ 65 years) and the pneumonia severity index (PSI), and examine its usefulness for predicting mortality and ICU admission in patients with CAP of high severity and mortality that requires hospitalization.