The CURB-65 score is a clinical severity-assessment tool for community-acquired pneumonia that assigns one point each for confusion, elevated urea, elevated respiratory rate, low diastolic blood pressure, and age over 65, producing a score from 0 to 5 that correlates with increasing mortality risk and guides site-of-care decisions (home treatment, hospital admission, or intensive care). Additional prognostic features beyond the score—hypoxia refractory to supplemental oxygen, multilobar or progressive radiographic disease, positive blood cultures, markedly elevated C-reactive protein, and severe comorbidity—further stratify risk of severe outcomes. This belongs to respiratory medicine, specifically clinical severity scoring and risk stratification for infectious lung disease.
The CURB-65 score is a clinical severity-assessment tool for community-acquired pneumonia that assigns one point each for confusion, elevated urea, elevated respiratory rate, low diastolic blood pres…