Table 1.
Differences between common K. pneumoniae (cKp) and hypervirulent K. pneumoniae (hvKp).
| cKp | hvKp | |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition of infection | mostly hospital acquired | mostly community acquired |
| Host status | immunocompromised, old, hospitalized | previously healthy, all ages; |
| Geographic region | globally spread | first endemic in South East Asia, with progressive global spreading [51] |
| Locus of primary infection | lungs, urinary tract, blood stream, meningitis | liver, less frequently kidney, lungs, others |
| Co-pathogens | unfrequently; mostly monomicrobial | may be plurimicrobial, especially is digestive, hepatobiliary, urinary or soft tissue infections [6,51] |
| Metastatic spread | unfrequently | Frequent: endophthalmitis, meningitis, central nervous system (CNS), psoas, prostatic abscess, necrotizing fasciitis) [51,52] |
| Phenotype | String < 5 mm | hypermucoviscosity, string > 5 mm |
| Serotypes | K1–79 | mostly K1, K2; other serotypes identified: K5, K16, K20, K54, K57, KN1 |
| Multidrug resistance (MDR) | Frequent, especially in hospital acquired infections (to cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, carbapenems) | less than 10–15% (but on a emerging trend) |
| Siderophores | enterobactin, yersiniabactin [6,53] | enterobactin, aerobactin, yersiniabactin, salmochelin [6,53] |