Table 2.
Patient characteristics.
| Variables | Prospective (n = 198) |
Retrospective (n = 173) |
p
Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Age (years) | 64.0 [50.0; 73.0] | 68.0 [56.0; 76.0] | 0.0638 |
| Body mass index (kg/m2) | 26.0 [23.0; 29.0] | 26.0 [24.0; 29.4] | 0.4151 |
| APACHE II scores | 23.0 [18.0; 30.0] | 24.0 [20.0; 28.0] | 0.5395 |
| Sex | |||
| Female | 68 (34.3) | 55 (31.8) | 0.6025 |
| Male | 130 (65.7) | 118 (68.2) | |
| Admission category | |||
| Neurosurgical | 88 (44.5) | 92 (53.2) | 0.0930 |
| Cardiovascular | 38 (19.2) | 39 (22.5) | 0.4271 |
| General surgical | 44 (22.2) | 19 (11.0) | 0.004 |
| Non-cardiac internal medicine | 28 (14.4) | 23 (13.3) | 0.8132 |
| Chronic heart failure | 35 (17.7) | 38 (22.0) | 0.2999 |
| Chronic renal failure | 17 (8.6) | 18 (10.4) | 0.5499 |
| Chronic liver failure | 8 (4.0) | 1 (0.6) | 0.03 |
| Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | 22 (11.1) | 18 (10.4) | 0.8135 |
| Gastric and duodenal ulcer | 9 (4.5%) | 7 (4.0) | 0.8133 |
| Diabetes mellitus | 46 (23.2) | 43 (24.9) | 0.7149 |
| Immunosuppression | 12 (6.1) | 5 (2.9) | 0.1451 |
| Smoking status | 43 (21.7) | 39 (22.5) | 0.8482 |
| Septic shock | 40 (20.2) | 30 (17.3) | 0.4822 |
| Tracheotomy | 54 (27.3) | 59 (34.1) | 0.1537 |
| Enteral nutrition | 169 (85.4) | 153 (88.4) | 0.3811 |
| Antibiotics prior to VAP | 36 (18.2) | 36 (20.8) | 0.5232 |
Results presented as medians (upper and lower quartile) or numbers (percentages). In the prospective cohort, patients were hospitalized more often for general surgical reasons than in the retrospective cohort (p = 0.004). There were more cases of chronic liver failure in this cohort too (p = 0.03). There was no statistically significant difference between the other variables (p > 0.05).