Is microbiological diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia possible and useful?

Symposium
Chairs: W. Lim (Nottingham, United Kingdom), G. Dimopoulos (Athens, Greece)
Aims: The symposium will update the audience on the cost-benefit value of new microbiological and non-microbiological techniques for the diagnosis of bacterial infection in pneumonia.

Rapid diagnostic methods: from urinary antigens to multiplex PCR M. Ieven (Antwerp, Belgium)
Biomarkers of bacterial infection M. Tamm (Basel, Switzerland)
Invasive approaches to the aetiologic diagnosis: when and why? A. Torres (Barcelona, Spain)
Microbiological diagnosis and clinical outcome: where are we? S. Ewig (Bochum, Germany)