Patients with persistent bacteremia were significantly more likely to have low/deficient MBL-producing genotypes and resultant low serum MBL levels, than were patients with resolving bacteremia (P = 0.019 and P = 0.012, respectively).
In conclusion, MBL2 genotypes representing MBL insufficiency were not associated with the overall risk of bacteraemia or disease severity, but smoking in carriers of the structural variant O allele may have a deleterious effect increasing the risk of Gram-positive bacteraemia.
Fifty patients with the wild-type MBL genotype showed higher MBL levels in each phase (P < 0.001) and an increased risk to developing bacteraemia, odds ratio (OR) 2.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01-7.52) (P = 0.02), but this did not correlate with the pneumonia severity class.