Risk Factors of Postoperative Nosocomial Pneumonia in Stage Ⅰ-Ⅲa Lung Cancer Patients

Background: To investigate the related risk factors of postoperative nosocomial pneumonia (POP) inpatients withⅠ-Ⅲa lung cancer.
Methods: Medical records of 511 patients who underwent resection for lungcancer between January 2012 to December 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. Risk factors of postoperativepneumonia were identified and evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses.
Results: The incidence ofpostoperative pneumonia in these lung cancer patients was 2.9% (15 cases). Compared with 496 patients whohad no pneumonia infection after operation, older age (>60), histopathological type of squamous cell carcinomaand longer surgery time (>3h) were significant risk factors by univariate analysis. Other potential risk factorssuch as alcohol consumption, history of smoking, hypersensitivity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and so onwere not showed such significance in this study. Further, the multivariate analysis revealed that old age (>60years) (OR 5.813, p=0.018) and histopathological type of squamous cell carcinoma (OR 5.831, p<0.001) werealso statistically significant independent risk factors for postoperative pneumonia.
Conclusions: This studydemonstrated that being old aged (>60 years) and having squamous cell carcinoma histopathological type mightbe important factors in determining the risk of postoperative pneumonia in lung cancer patients after surgery.