A Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) - Based Method to Improve Antibiotic Prescribing for Pneumonia

Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Status: Withdrawn

Conditions: Pneumonia

Treatments: Procedure: nasopharyngeal swab

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00867841

CHEO-ID-001

Details and patient eligibility

About

Pneumonia, or lung infection, is usually treated with antibiotics targeted against the organisms that the physician guesses are causing the problem. The determination of the exact cause of a patient's pneumonia is difficult. The problem is that the two major causes of community-acquired pneumonia are not easily distinguished on clinical grounds and are best treated by different antibiotics. The investigators hypothesize that antibiotic therapy can be targeted and improved by doing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing of nose swabs to identify probable implicated organisms and their antibiotic resistance patterns. This pilot study will be important to ensure that the laboratory testing is functional and that the emergency department-laboratory communication is optimal prior to doing a full-fledged randomized clinical trial.

Sex: All

Ages: 180+ days old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• presumed community-acquired pneumonia as diagnosed by the attending emergency department physician

Exclusion criteria

• age > 6 months
• immunodeficiency (primary, advanced HIV)
• cystic fibrosis
• malignancy
• known cardiac or lung defects
• bronchiectasis
• previous pneumonia or lung abscess in past 6 months
• conditions requiring treatment with immune suppressants

Trial design

0 participants in 1 patient group

Pneumonia

Description:

Children diagnosed with community-acquired pneumonia by the emergency department physician

Treatment:

Procedure: nasopharyngeal swab