Scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have discovered that unresolved secondary bacterial pneumonia is a key driver of death in patients with COVID-19, affecting nearly half of the patients who required mechanical ventilation support. Their findings, published in, also debunk the theory that COVID-19 causes a “cytokine storm” leading to death.
“Our study highlights the importance of preventing, looking for, and aggressively treating secondary bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients with severe pneumonia, including those with COVID-19,” said senior author Benjamin Singer, MD, the Lawrence Hicks Professor of Pulmonary Medicine in the Department of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine pulmonary and critical care physician.
The study findings also negate the cytokine storm theory, said Singer, also a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. These patients or their surrogates consented to enroll in the Successful Clinical Response to Pneumonia Therapy study, an observational trial to identify new biomarkers and therapies for patients with severe pneumonia. As part of SCRIPT, an expert panel of ICU physicians used state-of-the-art analysis of lung samples collected as part of clinical care to diagnose and adjudicate the outcomes of secondary pneumonia events.