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Objectives: Persistent post-acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms (PACSs) have been reported up to 6 months after hospital discharge. Herein we assessed the symptoms that persisted 12 months (M12) after admission for COVID-19 in the longitudinal prospective national French coronavirus disease cohort., Methods: Hospitalized patients with a confirmed virological diagnosis of COVID-19 were enrolled. Follow-up was planned until M12 after admission. Associations between persistence of ≥3 PACSs at M12 and clinical characteristics at admission were assessed through logistic regression according to gender., Results: We focused on participants enrolled between 24 January 2020 and 15 July 2020, to allow M12 follow-up. The M12 data were available for 737 participants. Median age was 61 years, 475 (64%) were men and 242/647 (37%) were admitted to intensive care units during the acute phase. At M12, 27% (194/710) of the participants had ≥3 persistent PACS, mostly fatigue, dyspnoea and joint pain. Among those who had a professional occupation before the acute phase, 91 out of 339 (27%) were still on sick leave at M12. Presence of ≥3 persistent PACS was associated with female gender, both anxiety and depression, impaired health-related quality of life and Medical Muscle Research Council Scale <57. Compared with men, women more often reported presence of ≥3 persistent PACSs (98/253, 39% vs. 96/457, 21%), depression and anxiety (18/152, 12% vs. 17/268, 6% and 33/156, 21% vs. 26/264, 10%, respectively), impaired physical health-related quality of life (76/141, 54% vs. 120/261, 46%). Women had less often returned to work than men (77/116, 66% vs. 171/223, 77%)., Conclusions: One fourth of the individuals admitted to hospital for COVID-19 still had ≥3 persistent PACSs at M12 post-discharge. Women reported more often ≥3 persistent PACSs, suffered more from anxiety and depression and had less often returned to work than men., (Copyright © 2022 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Lactate albumin ratio (LAR) has been used as a prognostic marker associated with organ failure in critically ill septic patients. LAR and its association with outcomes has never been studied in burned patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of LAR to predict 28-day mortality., Methods: A retrospective cohort study including all burn patients hospitalized in intensive care unit. The primary endpoint was the 28-day mortality., Results: One thousand three hundred thirty four patients were screened, and 471 were included between June 2012 and December 2018. Briefly, the population study was mainly composed by men (249, 59.1%), the median age, TBSA burned, full thickness, ABSI and IGS2 were 52 [34-68], 20 [10-40], 8 [1-23], 7 [5-9] and 25 [15-40] respectively. Fifty-two patients (12.4%) died at day 28 after admission. At admission, the LAR level was lower in 28-day survivors compared non-survivors (0.05 [0.04, 0.08] vs 0.12 [0.07, 0.26], p < 0.001 respectively). In multivariate analysis accounting for ABSI, LAR levels at admission> 0.13 was independently associated with 28-day mortality (adjusted OR = 3.98 (IC95 1.88-8.35)). The ability of LAR at admission to discriminate 28-day mortality showed an AUC identical when compared to SOFA and ABSI scores (0.81 (IC95 0.74-0.88), 0.80 (IC95 0.72-0.85) and (0.85 (IC95 0.80-0.90), p < 0.05, respectively). Patients with LAR levels ≥ 0.13 at admission had higher 28-day mortality (40.6% vs 6.8%, p < 0.001, HR 7.39 (IC95 4.28-12.76))., Conclusion: At admission, LAR is an easy and reliable marker independently associated to 28-day mortality in patients with severe burn injury, but prediction by LAR does not perform better than lactate level alone., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest All authors declared no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the performance of FilmArray Pneumonia Panel Plus (FA-PP) for the detection of typical bacterial pathogens in respiratory samples from patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICUs)., Methods: FA-PP was implemented for clinical use in the microbiology laboratory in March 2020. A retrospective analysis on a consecutive cohort of adult patients hospitalized in ICUs between March 2020 and May 2020 was undertaken. The respiratory samples included sputum, blind bronchoalveolar lavage (BBAL) and protected specimen brush (PSB). Conventional culture and FA-PP were performed in parallel., Results: In total, 147 samples from 92 patients were analysed; 88% had coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). At least one pathogen was detected in 46% (68/147) of samples by FA-PP and 39% (57/147) of samples by culture. The overall percentage agreement between FA-PP and culture results was 98% (93-100%). Bacteria with semi-quantitative FA-PP results ≥10 5 copies/mL for PSB samples, ≥10 6 copies/mL for BBAL samples and ≥10 7 copies/mL for sputum samples reached clinically significant thresholds for growth in 90%, 100% and 91% of cultures, respectively. FA-PP detected resistance markers, including mecA/C, bla CTX-M and bla VIM . The median turnaround time was significantly shorter for FA-PP than for culture., Conclusions: FA-PP may constitute a faster approach to the diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in patients hospitalized in ICUs., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to determine the incidence of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), and to describe the patient characteristics associated with IPA occurrence and to evaluate its impact on prognosis., Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study including all successive COVID-19 patients, hospitalized in four ICUs, with secondary deterioration and one or more respiratory samples sent to the mycology department. We used a strengthened IPA testing strategy including seven mycological criteria. Patients were classified as probable IPA according to the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)/Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium (MSGERC) classification if immunocompromised, and according to the recent COVID-19-associated IPA classification otherwise., Results: Probable IPA was diagnosed in 21 out of the 366 COVID-19 patients (5.7%) admitted to the ICU and in the 108 patients (19.4%) who underwent respiratory sampling for deterioration. No significant differences were observed between patients with and without IPA regarding age, gender, medical history and severity on admission and during hospitalization. Treatment with azithromycin for ≥3 days was associated with the diagnosis of probable IPA (odds ratio 3.1, 95% confidence interval 1.1-8.5, p = 0.02). A trend was observed with high-dose dexamethasone and the occurrence of IPA. Overall mortality was higher in the IPA patients (15/21, 71.4% versus 32/87, 36.8%, p < 0.01)., Conclusion: IPA is a relatively frequent complication in severe COVID-19 patients and is responsible for increased mortality. Azithromycin, known to have immunomodulatory properties, may contribute to increase COVID-19 patient's susceptibility to IPA., (Copyright © 2020 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Hypoalbuminemia is a frequent condition in the first 24 h after a severe burn injury and is associated with worse outcomes., Methodology: We investigated the relation between very early hypoalbuminemia (<6 h after admission) and clinical outcome in a retrospective cohort admitted to our unit for severe burn injuries between 2012 and 2017., Results: 73 severely burned patients were included, with a delay of admission of 3 (2-4) h. In a context of early exogenous supply of albumin, admission and 4H Albuminemia (Alb4 h) were significantly lower in deceased patients (respectively, 34 (29-37) vs 27 (23-30) g/l; p = 0.009 and 27 (24-32) vs 21 (17-27) g/l; p = 0.022) whereas albuminemia ≥6 h were not. The best threshold value of Alb4 h to discriminate 28-day mortality was 23 g/l. Patients with an Alb4 h < 23 g/l had a higher 28-day mortality than patients with an Alb4 h ≥ 23 g/l (42% vs 11%; p = 0.003); adjusted OR = 4.47 (95% CI 1.15-17.36); p = 0.03., Conclusion: In severely burned patients receiving early albumin supply, early hypoalbuminemia is associated with higher mortality whereas later albuminemia (≥6 h) is not. Exploration of whether early albumin infusion (8-12 h post injury) may alter clinical outcome is warranted., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.)