Biomarkers in community-acquired pneumonia: still searching for the one

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide [1]. Despite advances in antibiotic treatment and medical care, the mortality of CAP is still high in hospitalised patients, especially in those with severe illness [2]. Appropriate initial severity assessment is a crucial step in pneumonia management, since it has been demonstrated that an early recognition of severe CAP patients improves their clinical outcomes [3]. Several tools have been developed to evaluate disease severity, in particular focusing on predicting hospital admission and mortality [4]. However, recent studies have showed that most of these scores are not used routinely in clinical practice and may be inadequate tools to guide appropriate antibiotic treatment [5, 6].

Source: European Respiratory Journal - February 28, 2019 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Sibila, O., Restrepo, M. I. Tags: Editorials Source Type: research