Table 1.
Characteristics of studies reporting the etiology of community acquired pneumonia (CAP)
| Nature of the microbiologic studies | Bacteria only | Bacteria & ‘atypicals’ a | Bacteria, ‘atypicals’ & viruses | Modern Studies: Bacteria and: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCR for ‘atypicals’ | PCR for viruses | PCR for ‘atypicals’ and viruses | ||||
| Number of studies | 25 | 37 | 46 | 16 | 10 | 12 |
| Publication years | 1945–2010 | 1984–2020 | 1967–2017 | 1999–2020 | 2008–2019 | 2005–2019 |
| Study setting | ||||||
| Inpatient only | 8653 | 14,281 | 23,555 | 6790 | 6260 | 4399 |
| Inpatient/outpatient | 118 | 3786 | 3512 | 1069 | 5295 | 2752 |
| Outpatient only | 610 | 1368 | 226 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Number of CAP patients | 9381 | 19,435 | 27,293 | 7859 | 11,555 | 7151 |
| Specifies antibiotic exposure prior to microbiologic testing | 687 (7.3%) | 3104 (16%) | 4203 (15.4%) | 1074 (13.7%) | 2085 (18%) | 966 (13.5%) |
| Number of patients with no etiology determined | 6293 (67.1%) | 11,663 (60.0%) | 13,704 (50.2%) | 4484 (57.1%) | 5823 (50.4%) | 4380 (61.3%) |
a “Atypicals” is a term used loosely in publications to refer to Mycoplasma, Chlamydophila, Legionella and/or Coxiella