Association Between Specimen Source and Carbapenemase-Gene Detection in Klebsiella pneumoniae Clinical Isolates: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

Klebsiella pneumoniae is an important cause of healthcare-associated and community-associated infections and is a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance. Carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae can substantially limit therapeutic options. Although large genomic surveillance datasets provide valuable information about antimicrobial-resistance determinants, prior studies have shown that these repositories may not represent the true distribution of resistance across clinical specimen sources because isolate submission can be influenced by surveillance priorities, outbreak investigations, and laboratory sequencing practices. Based on this established evidence, I evaluated the association between specimen source and detection of selected carbapenemase-associated genes among K. pneumoniae clinical isolates in a large public genomic dataset.