The Enduring Challenge of Determining Pneumonia Etiology in Children: Considerations for Future Research Priorities.

ABSTRACT: Pneumonia kills more children each year worldwide than any other disease. Nonetheless, accurately determining the causes of childhood pneumonia has remained elusive. Over the past century, the focus of pneumonia etiology research has shifted from studies of lung aspirates and postmortem specimens intent on identifying pneumococcal disease to studies of multiple specimen types distant from the lung that are tested for multiple pathogens. Some major challenges facing modern pneumonia etiology studies include the use of nonspecific and variable case definitions, poor access to pathologic lung tissue and to specimens from fatal cases, poor diagnostic accuracy of assays (especially when testing nonpulmonary specimens), and the interpretation of results when multiple pathogens are detected in a

SUBMITTER: Feikin DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5447852 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature