The Use of the SMART-COP Score in Predicting Severity Outcomes Among Patients With Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Meta-Analysis

Pneumonia is a pathological process of interstitial lung tissue and distal airway and alveolar infection and infiltration. SMART-COP (systolic blood pressure, multilobar infiltrates, albumin, respiratory rate, tachycardia, confusion, oxygen, and pH) is a severity score method designed to identify individuals who require intensive respiratory or vasopressor support (IRVS) support due to pneumonia. Therefore, it is important for management decisions in pneumonia. This meta-analysis was conducted to determine the performance of the SMART-COP score in predicting the prognosis and severity of patients presenting with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). The current meta-analysis was performed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A systematic search was conducted using Medline, Embase, and CINAHL to identify relevant studies assessing the validity of the SMART-COP score in predicting the severity of patients with CAP. Overall, nine studies were included in the current meta-analysis. A pooled sensitivity of the SMART-COP score to predict the use of IRVS is 89% (95% CI: 84%-92%) while its specificity is 68% (95% CI: 65%-70%). The pooled sensitivity of the SMART-COP score to predict 30-day mortality is 92% (95% CI: 89%-94%) while its specificity is 39% (95% CI: 37%-42%). To summarize, SMART-COP is a new, eight-variable instrument that appears to accurately identify patients with CAP who will require IRVS and 30-day mortality. Our findings show that SMART-COP will be a valuable tool for clinicians in accurately predicting illness severity in CAP patients as compared to other scoring systems. SMART-COP can be useful to identify patients who need urgent management.