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Chest infections - adult - Background information
What are the usual pathogens?
There is uncertainty about what proportion of chest infections are caused by specific pathogens because:
- Microbiological investigations cannot accurately identify the underlying cause of a chest infection in many cases, because investigations:
- Often fail to identify any viral or bacterial pathogen.
- May isolate commensal bacteria that play no pathological role.
- May only identify pathogens causing secondary infection.
- Different studies commonly report quite different findings for the proportion of chest infections caused by a specific organism. This may be due to seasonal variation, patient characteristics, definitions of chest infection, and different diagnostic techniques.
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