Diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia: challenge the dogmas!
Symposium Chairs: B. Schoenhofer (Hanover, Germany), R. Cosentini (Milan, Italy)
Aims: At the end of this symposium the participants should: have improved their knowledge about the diagnostic procedures for pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia; know the best practice for invasive diagnostic techniques (brush biopsy and bronchoalveolar lavage) compared with tracheal aspirate; know how to apply noninvasive techniques, with laboratory markers; know about the role of clinical evaluation and clinical pulmonary infection score; and know about the role of imaging, chest radiography, computed tomography scans and other recent imaging techniques.