Prevalence Of Pathogens in Intensive Care Unit Patients with Lower Respiratory Tract Infections: Culture With/Without Polymerase Chain Reaction?

The lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) are a leading cause of hospitalization and
death globally [1]. The early initiation of appropriate antibiotics in patients with LRTI is
crucial as postponing effective antibiotic administration can adversely affect the prognosis
[2,3]. Therefore, diagnostic studies establishing the microbial etiology of LRTI are
fundamental to provide effective therapy and administration of appropriate antibiotics to
the patients [4,5]. Currently, antimicrobial therapy of LRTI is typically initiated on an empirical basis, because
of the traditional diagnostic methods including standard culture and antigen detection assay
are not able to detect significant proportion of causative pathogens [6,7]. In addition,
standard culture and antibiotic susceptibility tests are time-consuming processes, which
require at least 24-48 hours [8]. It is known that delay in antibiotic administration is
associated with increased in-hospital mortality, especially in severe infections such as
pneumonia [9].