ArticleAnnals of Saudi medicine
Risk of pneumonia among patients with splenectomy: a retrospective population-based cohort study.
Article in Annals of Saudi medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- A prospective cohort study of the incidence, etiology and outcome of pneumonia among cancer patients in an oncology intensive care unit from Eastern India.Ecancermedicalscience · 2025Article
- Operative considerations for resection of pituitary adenoma in patients with sickle cell disease: A retrospective analysis of 19,653 patients.Surgical neurology international · 2025Article
- Comparison of Long-Term Pneumonia Risk between Spleen Injury and Non-Spleen Injury after Total Splenectomy-A Population-Based Study.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Leptospirosis in an asplenic patient -case report.BMC infectious diseases · 2020Article
- Pneumonia incidence trends in UK primary care from 2002 to 2017: population-based cohort study.Epidemiology and infection · 2019Article
- Association between oral corticosteroid use and pyogenic liver abscesses in a case-control study.BioMedicine · 2018Article
- Case-Control Study Examining the Association between Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Use and Hepatocellular Carcinoma.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPeople without a spleen are particularly susceptible to various overwhelming infections including pneumonia. Although the association between splenectomy and pneumonia has been previously studied, there has been no study using the national claims data.
objectivesThe aim of the study was to investigate the association between splenectomy and pneumonia.
designA retrospective population-based cohort analysis. SETTINGS: Database of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program. PATIENTS: Persons newly diagnosed with splenectomy from 2000 to 2010 were compared with randomly selected subjects without splenectomy. The groups were matched by sex, age, comorbidities, and the year of index date and analyzed by multivariate methods.
main outcome measureThe difference in incidence of pneumonia at the end of 2011.
resultsIn 12 757 individuals aged 20-84 years with splenectomy, the overall incidence of pneumonia was 1.86-fold higher than in the 51 019 individuals without splenectomy (25.0 vs. 13.4 per 1000 person-years, 95% CI 1.78, 1.95). After multivariate analysis, the adjusted hazard ratio for pneumonia was 2.2 for subjects with splenectomy (95%CI 2.07, 2.34). In further analysis, in the absence of any comorbidity, the adjusted HR for pneumonia was 3.03 for those with splenectomy alone (95% CI 2.76, 3.33) and 5.28 (95% CI 4.82, 5.78) for splenectomy and any comorbidity.
conclusionsAlthough not a novel finding, we confirmed that splenectomy increases the relative risk for developing pneumonia in a large study population. Even in the absence of any comorbidity, the risk remains high. Patients with splenectomy should receive preventive interventions for pneumonia, such as vaccination. LIMITATIONS: ICD-9 codes do not differentiate if pneumonia is caused by a viral, a bacterial or unspecified organisms, and some behavioral factors like smoking could not be ascertained directly.
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