Optimal treatment of severe community-acquired pneumonia

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and is the most common cause of death from infectious diseases. Severe CAP (SCAP) patients that required ICU admission carry the highest mortality rates. Multiple sets of clinical practice guidelines have been published in the past few years addressing the treatment of CAP, and they all agree that CAP patients admitted to the hospital represent a major concern, and appropriate empiric therapy should be instituted to improve clinical outcomes. The purpose of this article is to review the current literature regarding the optimal empiric selection of antibiotic therapy for patients with SCAP. In addition emphasis on the empiric and direct therapy will be made on patients with bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia.