REVIEW   Free access

Minerva Respiratory Medicine 2023 March;62(1):42-9

DOI: 10.23736/S2784-8477.22.02044-7

Copyright © 2022 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Advances in molecular diagnostic tests for community-acquired pneumonia

Catia CILLONIZ ^{1, 2} ✉, Yuliya POLIAKOVA ³, Juan C. HURTADO ⁴

¹ Department of Pulmonology, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; ² Faculty of Health Sciences, Continental University, Huancayo, Peru; ³ SYNLAB Diagnósticos Globales S.A.U, Madrid, Spain; ⁴ Department of Microbiology, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

The use of a timely and appropriate antibiotic therapy, which requires early and accurate microorganisms’ detection in pneumonia. Currently, the identification of microorganisms in pneumonia is limited by the low sensitivity and long response time of standard culture-based diagnostic tools. For this reason, treatment in pneumonia is empirical. An inadequate empirical treatment is related to poor outcomes in patients with pneumonia. The microbiological diagnosis is key to improve the outcomes in patient with pneumonia. Over the past years there was a significant advance in the molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases including pneumonia. Also the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the development and application of these new molecular techniques. This review summarizes the advances in molecular diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia.

KEY WORDS: Pneumonia; Molecular diagnostic techniques; Community-acquired infections