Diagnostic Testing in Patients with a Clinical Diagnosis of Pneumonia

Abstract

Making an etiologic diagnosis of pneumonia requires microbiologic testing with a combination of complimentary tests. Recent advances include the commercial availability of syndromic multiplex PCR panels designed to detect the most common causes of bacterial and viral pneumonia along with selected antibiotic resistance genes, host biomarker tests, and immune gene expression signatures that can help separate infection from noninfectious inflammation as well as differentiate viral from bacterial processes. Current society guidelines do not yet address the use of new diagnostics. This article summarizes the advantages and limitations of new laboratory diagnostics for pneumonia and discusses potential use cases.