Factors associated with length of hospital stay among HIV positive and HIV negative patients with tuberculosis in Brazil

Patient characteristics and predictors of mortality among children hospitalised with tuberculosis: A six-year case series study in Uganda

BACKGROUND

The high case-fatality rates among children with tuberculosis (TB) are reportedly driven by in-hospital mortality and severe forms of TB. Therefore, there is need to better understand the predictors of mortality among children hospitalised with TB. We examined the patient clinical profiles, length of hospital stay from date of admission to date of final admission outcome, and predictors of mortality among children hospitalised with TB at two tertiary hospitals in Uganda.

METHODS

We conducted a case-series study of children below 15 years of age hospitalised with TB, from January 1st, 2016, to December 31st, 2021. Convenience sampling was done to select TB cases from paper-based medical records at Mulago National Referral Hospital (MNRH) in urban Kampala, and Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital (FRRH) in rural Fort Portal. We fitted linear and logistic regression models with length of stay and in-hospital mortality as key outcomes.

RESULTS

Out of the 201 children hospitalised with TB, 50 were at FRRH, and 151 at MNRH. The male to female ratio was 1.5 with median age of 2.6 years (Interquartile range-IQR 1-6). There was a high prevalence of HIV (67/171, 39%), severe malnutrition reported as weight-for-age Z-score <-3SD (51/168, 30%). Among children with pulmonary TB who initiated anti-tuberculosis therapy (ATT) either during hospitalisation or within seven days prior to hospitalisation; cough (134/143, 94%), fever (111/143, 78%), and dyspnoea (78/143, 55%) were common symptoms. Children with TB meningitis commonly presented with fever (17/24, 71%), convulsions (14/24 58%), and cough (13/24, 54%). The median length of hospital stay was 8 days (IQR 5-15). Of the 199 children with known in-hospital outcomes, 34 (17.1%) died during hospitalisation. TB meningitis was associated with in-hospital mortality (aOR = 3.50, 95% CI = 1.10-11.17, p = 0.035), while male sex was associated with reduced mortality (aOR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.12-0.95, p = 0.035). Hospitalisation in the urban hospital predicted a 0.48-day increase in natural log-transformed length of hospital stay (ln-length of stay) (95% CI 0.15-0.82, p = 0.005), but not age, sex, HIV, malnutrition, or TB meningitis.

CONCLUSIONS

In-hospital mortality was high, and significantly driven almost four times higher by TB meningitis, with longer hospital stay among children in urban hospitals. The high in-hospital mortality and long hospital stay may be reduced by timely TB diagnosis and treatment initiation among children.

Supervised machine learning algorithms to predict the duration and risk of long-term hospitalization in HIV-infected individuals: a retrospective study

Objective

The study aimed to use supervised machine learning models to predict the length and risk of prolonged hospitalization in PLWHs to help physicians timely clinical intervention and avoid waste of health resources.

Methods

Regression models were established based on RF, KNN, SVM, and XGB to predict the length of hospital stay using RMSE, MAE, MAPE, and R2, while classification models were established based on RF, KNN, SVM, NN, and XGB to predict risk of prolonged hospital stay using accuracy, PPV, NPV, specificity, sensitivity, and kappa, and visualization evaluation based on AUROC, AUPRC, calibration curves and decision curves of all models were used for internally validation.

Results

In regression models, XGB model performed best in the internal validation (RMSE = 16.81, MAE = 10.39, MAPE = 0.98, R2 = 0.47) to predict the length of hospital stay, while in classification models, NN model presented good fitting and stable features and performed best in testing sets, with excellent accuracy (0.7623), PPV (0.7853), NPV (0.7092), sensitivity (0.8754), specificity (0.5882), and kappa (0.4672), and further visualization evaluation indicated that the largest AUROC (0.9779), AUPRC (0.773) and well-performed calibration curve and decision curve in the internal validation.

Conclusion

This study showed that XGB model was effective in predicting the length of hospital stay, while NN model was effective in predicting the risk of prolonged hospitalization in PLWH. Based on predictive models, an intelligent medical prediction system may be developed to effectively predict the length of stay and risk of HIV patients according to their medical records, which helped reduce the waste of healthcare resources.

Hospitalizations and Treatment Outcomes in Patients with Urogenital Tuberculosis in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2016-2018

Despite the global shift to ambulatory tuberculosis (TB) care, hospitalizations remain common in Uzbekistan. This study examined the duration and determinants of hospitalizations among adult patients (≥18 years) with urogenital TB (UGTB) treated with first-line anti-TB drugs during 2016–2018 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This was a cohort study based on the analysis of health records. Of 142 included patients, 77 (54%) were males, the mean (±standard deviation) age was 40 ± 16 years, and 68 (48%) were laboratory-confirmed. A total of 136 (96%) patients were hospitalized during the intensive phase, and 12 (8%) had hospital admissions during the continuation phase of treatment. The median length of stay (LOS) during treatment was 56 days (Interquartile range: 56–58 days). LOS was associated with history of migration (adjusted incidence rate ratio (aIRR): 0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.32–0.69, p < 0.001); UGTB-related surgery (aIRR: 1.18, 95% CI: 1.01–1.38, p = 0.045); and hepatitis B comorbidity (aIRR: 3.18, 95% CI: 1.98–5.39, p < 0.001). The treatment success was 94% and it was not associated with the LOS. Hospitalization was almost universal among patients with UGTB in Uzbekistan. Future research should focus on finding out what proportion of hospitalizations were not clinically justified and could have been avoided.

Predictors of prolonged hospital stay in HIV-positive patients presenting to the emergency department

BACKGROUND

Prolonged hospitalization places a significant burden on healthcare resources. Compared to the general population, hospital length of stay (LOS) is generally longer in HIV-positive patients. We identified predictors of prolonged hospital length of stay (LOS) in HIV-positive patients presenting to an emergency department (ED).

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, HIV-positive patients presenting to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital adult ED were prospectively enrolled between 07 July 2017 and 18 October 2018. Data was subjected to univariate and multivariate logistic regression to determine parameters associated with a higher likelihood of prolonged hospital LOS, defined as ≥7 days.

RESULTS

Among the 1224 participants that were enrolled, the median (IQR) LOS was 4.6 (2.6-8.2) days, while the mean (SD) LOS was 6.9 (8.2) days. On multivariate analysis of the data, hemoglobin <11 g/dL (OR 1.37, p = 0.032), Glasgow coma scale (GCS) <15 (OR 1.80, p = 0.001), creatinine >120 μmol/L (OR 1.85, p = 0.000), cryptococcal meningitis (OR 2.45, p = 0.015) and bacterial meningitis (OR 4.83, p = 0.002) were significantly associated with a higher likelihood of LOS ≥7 days, while bacterial pneumonia (OR 0.35, p = 0.000) and acute gastroenteritis (OR 0.40, p = 0.025) were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of LOS ≥7 days.

CONCLUSION

Various clinical and laboratory parameters are useful in predicting prolonged hospitalization among HIV-positive patients presenting to the ED. These parameters may be useful in guiding clinical decision making and directing the allocation of resources.

Tuberculosis, COVID-19 and hospital admission: Consensus on pros and cons based on a review of the evidence

The scientific debate on the criteria guiding hospitalization of tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 patients is ongoing. The aim of this review is to present the available evidence on admission for TB and TB/COVID-19 patients and discuss the criteria guiding hospitalization. Furthermore, recommendations are made as derived from recently published World Health Organization documents, based on Global Tuberculosis Network (GTN) expert opinion. The core published documents and guidelines on the topic have been reviewed. The proportion of new TB cases admitted to hospital ranges between 50% and 100% while for multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB patients it ranges between 85 and 100% globally. For TB patients with COVID-19 the proportion of cases admitted is 58%, probably reflecting different scenarios related to the diagnosis of COVID-19 before, after or at the same time of the active TB episode. The hospital length of stay for drug-susceptible TB ranges from 20 to 60 days in most of countries, ranging from a mean of 10 days (USA) to around 90 days in the Russian Federation. Hospitalization is longer for MDR-TB (50-180 days). The most frequently stated reasons for recommending hospital admission include: severe TB, infection control concerns, co-morbidities and drug adverse events which cannot be managed at out-patient level. The review also provides suggestions on hospital requirements for safe admissions as well as patient discharge criteria, while underlining the relevance of patient-centred care through community/home-based care.

Hospitalization rates, length of stay and in-hospital mortality in a cohort of HIV infected patients from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In this study, we evaluated trends in hospitalization rates, length of stay and in-hospital mortality in a cohort of HIV-infected patients in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 2007 through 2013. Among the 3991 included patients, 1861 hospitalizations occurred (hospitalization rate of 10.44/100 person-years, 95% confidence interval 9.98–10.93/100 person-years). Hospitalization rates decreased annually (per year incidence rate ratio 0.92, 95% confidence interval 0.89–0.95) as well as length of stay (median of 15 days in 2007 vs. 11 days in 2013, p-value for trend < 0.001), and in-hospital mortality (13.4% in 2007 to 8.1% in 2013, p-value for trend = 0.053). Our results show that, in a middle-income setting, hospitalization rates are decreasing over time and non-AIDS hospitalizations are currently more frequent than those related to AIDS. Notwithstanding, compared with high-income settings, our patients had longer length of stay and higher in-hospital mortality. Further studies addressing these outcomes are needed to provide information that may guide protocols and interventions to further reduce health-care costs and in-hospital mortality.

Longer hospital stay is associated with higher rates of tuberculosis-related morbidity and mortality within 12 months after discharge in a referral hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa

Background

Nosocomial transmission of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is a problem in resource-limited settings. However, the degree of TB exposure and the intermediate- and long-term morbidity and mortality of hospital-associated TB is unclear. In this study we determined: 1) the nature, patterns and intensity of TB exposure occurring in the context of current TB cohorting practices in medical centre with a high prevalence of TB and HIV; 2) the one-year TB incidence after discharge; and 3) one-year TB-related mortality after hospital discharge.

Methods

Factors leading to nosocomial TB exposure were collected daily over a 3-month period. Patients were followed for 1-year after discharge. TB incidence and mortality were calculated and logistic regression was used to determine the factors associated with TB incidence and mortality during follow up.

Results

1,094 patients were admitted to the medical wards between May 01 and July 31, 2010. HIV was confirmed in 690/1,094 (63.1%) of them. A total of 215/1,094 (19.7%) patients were diagnosed with PTB and 178/1,094 (16.3%) patients died during the course of their hospitalization; 12/178 (6.7%) patients died from TB-related complications. Eventually, 916 (83.7%) patients were discharged and followed for one year after it. Of these, 51 (5.6%) were diagnosed with PTB during the year of follow up (annual TB rate of 3,712 cases per 100,000 person per year). Overall, 57/916 (6.2%) patients died during the follow up period, of whom 26/57 (45.6%) died from confirmed TB. One-year TB incidence rate and TB-associated mortality were associated with the number of days that the patient remained hospitalized, the number of days spent in the cohorting bay (regardless of whether the patient was eventually diagnosed with TB or not), and the number and proximity to TB index cases. There was no difference in the performance of each of these 3 measurements of nosocomial TB exposure for the prediction of one-year TB incidence.

Conclusion

Substantial TB exposure, particularly among HIV-infected patients, occurs in nosocomial settings despite implementation of cohorting measures. Nosocomial TB exposure is strongly associated with one-year TB incidence and TB-related mortality. Further studies are needed to identify strategies to reduce such exposure among susceptible patients.