Pneumonia has been defined as an infection of lung parenchyma, and is the leading cause of hospitalization and death in developed countries. It is usually caused by infectious pathogens, bacterial, viral and fungal. In previous years classical microbiology methods were used in pneumonia patients where the therapeutic intervention was relatively effective. With the development of molecular microbiology methods the diagnostics of viral agents has been greatly improved. The aim of our study was to identify viral and bacterial etiology in patients with severe pneumonia. We tested 117 samples of the lower respiratory track. Samples were collected under the main prospective study from patients who have been due to severe pneumonia treated in Department of Intensive therapies (OIT), Department of Infectious Diseases University Medical Centre Ljubljana. The samples in our study were tested with commercial molecular system. For a detailed identify of pneumonia etiology, we added the results obtained by bacterial cultivation and molecular diagnostics of atypical pneumonia agents obtained during the prospective study. Causative agent was detected in 78,6 % of patients. Viruses were the most common cause of pneumonia. Influenza A was the most common detected virus (18,8 %). The most commonly detected bacteria was S. pneumoniae (15 %). Coinfection occurred in 27,4 % of patients, most common were viral-bacterial infections in 18 % of patients. Our study confirmed that the use of modern molecular methods is an important tool in the microbiological diagnosis of pneumonia. Molecular testing significantly improves pathogen detection with a highly specific and faster way of insight into the etiology of pneumonia.
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