What's New in Community-Acquired Pneumonia Diagnostics and Treatment?
The use of the chest x-ray for diagnosing bacterial pneumonia and the role of antibiotics in infected patients have been hot topics in community-acquired pneumonia. Scott Flanders, MD, gave an update at the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting (ACP 2017) in San Diego, California.
Pneumonia continues to be a major problem worldwide, killing nearly 1 million children ages 5 and younger, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Research on improving patient care is ongoing, and Scott Flanders, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Michigan spoke with MD Magazine about an update in community-acquired pneumonia.
At the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting (ACP 2017) in San Diego, California, Flanders explained that recent studies have questioned the use of the chest x-ray for diagnosing bacterial pneumonia that require antibiotics.
“I placed a lot of emphasis on a physician using their clinical skills, evaluating the patient using clinical judgement as to whether they think it’s pneumonia or not, and recognizing that in some cases they may think it’s pneumonia and the chest x-ray may be negative and it’s still a patient that may warrant antibiotic treatment,” Flanders explained.
The role of antibiotics has created a stir in the pneumonia community. One controversy is whether or not to routinely add macrolides onto beta-lactam agents for all hospitalized patients with pneumonia. Find out what Flanders thinks about the debate in the video above.
