Community Acquired Pneumonia in the Emergency Department: value and limits of prognostic severity scores

Abstract

Community - acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common cause of hospital admission and a leading cause of increased morbidity and mortality Emergency Physicians (EP) face the challenge to assess the initial management of Patients with CAP, identifying those at high and low risk Severity scoring systems (SSS) are used to predict risk and mortality, and to help decisions about treatment and management strategies. The most notable scales in common clinical use for CAP in the Emergency Department (ED) are CURB-65 and CRB-65, which showed some limitations but high specificity and high positive predictive value

Keywords

• Community - acquired pneumonia
• Emergency Department
• Severity scoring systems