ArticleThe Journal of infection2013
Can an etiologic agent be identified in adults who are hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia: results of a one-year study.
Article in The Journal of infection, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04681963 (Clinical Characteristics of Hospitalized Adults With Community-acquired- Pneumonia at the Emergency Department), which is not on this map. Cited by 122 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Clinical Characteristics of Hospitalized Adults With Community-acquired- Pneumonia at the Emergency Department: A Cross-sectional Study
Who cites it
122 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Diagnostic value of procalcitonin for identifying the etiology of lower respiratory tract infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Pooled it
- Etiology of bacterial pneumonia and multi-drug resistance pattern among pneumonia suspected patients in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Sputum Gram Stain for Bacterial Pathogen Diagnosis in Community-acquired Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Bayesian Meta-analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy and Yield.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2020Pooled it
- Viral infection in community-acquired pneumonia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2016Pooled it
- Incidence of respiratory viral infections detected by PCR and real-time PCR in adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia: a meta-analysis.Respiration; international review of thoracic diseases · 2015Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Enhanced Detection of Community-Acquired Pneumonia Pathogens With the BioFire® Pneumonia FilmArray® Panel.Diagnostic microbiology and infectious disease · 2021Trial
- Trial
- The impact of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination on virus-associated community-acquired pneumonia in elderly: Exploratory analysis of the CAPiTA trial.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2018Trial
- A novel host-proteome signature for distinguishing between acute bacterial and viral infections.PloS one · 2015Trial
- Acute exacerbation in fibrotic interstitial lung disease: an international working group report.American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine · 2026Review
- Article
- Pneumonia after Solid Organ Transplantation.Seminars in respiratory and critical care medicine · 2026Review
- ZIP8 loss impairs macrophage-mediated phagolysosomal removal of bacteria and is overcome by butyrate supplementation.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Investigating risk factors for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in community acquired pneumonia: a model for using only electronic data capture.Pneumonia (Nathan Qld.) · 2025Article
- Article
- Performance of BIOFIRE FILMARRAY pneumonia panel in suspected pneumonia: insights from a real-world study.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Application value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing based on protective bronchoalveolar lavage in nonresponding pneumonia.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Optimizing Neutrophil Recruitment to Tackle Bacterial Infections.American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology · 2025Article
- Ten Questions on Using Lung Ultrasonography to Diagnose and Manage Pneumonia in Hospital-at-Home Model: Part II-Confounders and Mimickers.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
62 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionDetermining the cause of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains problematic. In this observational study, we systematically applied currently approved diagnostic techniques in patients hospitalized for CAP in order to determine the proportion in which an etiological agent could be identified.
methodsAll patients admitted with findings consistent with CAP were included. Sputum and blood cultures, urine tests for pneumococcal and Legionella antigens, nasopharyngeal swab for viral PCR, and serum procalcitonin were obtained in nearly every case. Admission-related electronic medical records were reviewed in entirety.
resultsBy final clinical diagnosis, 44 patients (17.0%) were uninfected. A causative bacterium was identified in only 60 (23.2%) cases. PCR identified a respiratory virus in 42 (16.2%), 12 with documented bacterial coinfection. In 119 (45.9%), no cause for CAP was found; 69 (26.6%) of these had a syndrome indistinguishable from bacterial pneumonia. Procalcitonin was elevated in patients with bacterial infection and low in uninfected patients or those with viral infection, but with substantial overlap.
conclusionsOnly 23.2% of 259 patients admitted with a CAP syndrome had documented bacterial infection; another 26.6% had no identified bacterial etiology, but findings closely resembled those of bacterial infection. Nevertheless, all 259 received antibacterial therapy. Careful attention to the clinical picture may identify uninfected patients or those with viral infection, perhaps with reassurance by a non-elevated procalcitonin. Determining an etiologic diagnosis remains elusive. Better discriminators of bacterial infection are sorely needed.
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