| Popis: |
In 24 patients with bacterial pneumonia, reliability of the samples routinely taken for etiologic diagnosis (sputum, throat swab, bronchial brushing, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid--BALF, blood, pleural fluid) was determined. Organisms detected in blood, pleural fluid, transbronchial biopsy (TBB) or percutaneous transthoracic needle aspiration biopsy (PTNAB) samples were considered as truly causative, whereas those isolated in at least two various samples from a single patient were considered as presumably causative. Most sensitive diagnostic samples were BALF, TBB and PTNAB (100% each). However, the specificity of BALF was very low (17%). Bronchial aspirate was highly sensitive (95%) but not specific (14%). Bronchial brushing was sensitive (86%) but its specificity low (14%). Sputum was hardly sensitive (40%) and had no specificity. Throat swab had virtually no diagnostic value because of its low sensitivity (10.5%) and specificity (50%). |
