Etiologic Diagnosis of Adult Bacterial Pneumonia by Culture and PCR Applied to Respiratory Tract Samples

ABSTRACT

Respiratory culture and multiplex PCR for Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and Chlamydophila pneumoniae were applied to sputum, nasopharyngeal swabs, and nasopharyngeal aspirates from 235 adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia and 113 controls. Both culture and multiplex PCR performed well with the different samples and appear to be useful as diagnostic tools.