Evaluation of the clinical usefulness of blood cultures in hospitalised patients with community acquired pneumonia

Pneumonia that develop outside the hospital is considered CAP. Bacteremia is a serious clinical condition and can lead to death. To give the best chance for effective treatment and survival, a BC is done as soon as an infection is suspected. The aim of this work is to evaluate blood culture in patients with community acquired pneumonia and to correlate it with clinical response to medical treatment. This study was conducted on 50 patients; 36 males and 14 females. Sputum and blood samples are collected, transported and processed immediately in the laboratory by a technician under the supervision of a bacteriologist where blood and sputum culture were done. This study revealed that Strept. pneumoniae and H. infleunzae represented 38% of positive cultures, while Staph aureus and E.coli represented 30%. In conclusion, there was a little clinical usefulness of both sputum and BCs in the management of CAP and the empirical therapy is important as it gave 96% success without any antibiotic modification after the results of blood and sputum cultures have been available

Comparative analysis of the biochemical tests used to differentiate between pleural transudates and exudates

This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracies for pleural fluid tests that discriminate between transudative and exudative pleural effusion. A prospective evaluation of 78 patients with pleural effusion of different etiologies was done. The criteria showed the best results in this series, four effusions only were misclassified [three transudates and one exudate]. The number of misclassified effusions in other criteria was seven by PF cholinesterase [three transudates and four exudates], six by the P/S cholinesterase [four transudates and two exudates], six by PF cholesterol [one transudate and five exudates] and five by PF/S cholesterol ratio [two transudates and three exudates]. It was concluded that the criteria of Light et al. were the best method for distinguishing exudates from transudates