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Previous Volume 350:433-435 January 29, 2004 Number 5 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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The establishment of an appropriate diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia is one of the most crucial and difficult issues in the care of critically ill patients. Established clinical criteria alone, such as new or progressive infiltrates on chest radiography, together with fever, leukocytosis or leukopenia, and purulent tracheobronchial secretions, have been shown to be of limited diagnostic value. When the findings on histologic analysis and cultures of lung samples obtained immediately after death were used as references, the presence of chest infiltrates plus two of the three criteria mentioned above had a sensitivity of 69 percent and a specificity of 75 . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Institut Clínic de Pneumologia i Cirurgia Toràcica, Respiratory Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Clinic, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain (A.T.); and the Klinik für Pneumologie, Beatmungsmedizin, und Infektiologie, Augusta-Kranken-Anstalt, Bochum, Germany (S.E.).

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