Cécile Bessat, Roland Bingisser, Markus Schwendinger, Tim Bulaty, Yvan Fournier, Vincent Della Santa, Magali Pfeil, Dominique Schwab, Jörg D Leuppi, Nicolas Geigy, Stephan Steuer, Friedemann Roos, Michael Christ, Adriana Sirova, Tanguy Espejo, Henk Riedel, Alexandra Atzl, Fabian Napieralski, Joachim Marti, Giulio Cisco, Rose-Anna Foley, Melinée Schindler, Mary-Anne Hartley, Aurélie Fayet, Elena Garcia, Isabella Locatelli, Werner C Albrich, Olivier Hugli, Noémie Boillat-Blanco
BACKGROUND: Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are among the most frequent infections and a significant contributor to inappropriate antibiotic prescription. Currently, no single diagnostic tool can reliably identify bacterial pneumonia. We thus evaluate a multimodal approach based on a clinical score, lung ultrasound (LUS), and the inflammatory biomarker, procalcitonin (PCT) to guide prescription of antibiotics. LUS outperforms chest X-ray in the identification of pneumonia, while PCT is known to be elevated in bacterial and/or severe infections...
January 25, 2024: Trials