Comparing clinical assessments of pneumonia to bronchoalveolar lavage results in critically ill patients with suspected pneumonia
Caroline F Zhao, Catherine A Gao, Helen K Donnelly, Erin A Korth, Francisco J Martinez, Bridget Giblin, Lesley Pinzon, Rebecca K Clepp, Wan-Ting Liao, Nandita R Nadig, Benjamin D Singer, Richard G Wunderink, Chiagozie I Pickens · 2026
Read Comparing clinical assessments of pneumonia to bronchoalveolar lavage results in critically ill patients with suspected pneumonia by Caroline F Zhao, Catherine A Gao, Helen K Donnelly, Erin A Korth, Francisco J Martinez, Bridget Giblin, Lesley Pinzon, Rebecca K Clepp, Wan-Ting Liao, Nandita R Nadig, Benjamin D Singer, Richard G Wunderink, Chiagozie I Pickens (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13332427.txt.
Description
Zhao and colleagues compared bedside judgment with lab-confirmed diagnosis in 2026 for pneumonia in critically ill patients on ventilators. Clinicians decide on suspicion, yet how often it matches a verdict built on lung washings, called bronchoalveolar lavage, was undefined. In a single-center study from 2018 to 2022, clinicians rated their suspicion the same day as each washing, and an independent panel adjudicated the true diagnosis.
Among 659 patients, 84 percent were adjudicated to have pneumonia. Clinicians had rated one in five of those patients as low suspicion, while three in ten patients judged free of pneumonia had been rated high suspicion. Vital signs and lab values did not separate the missed group from the caught group. Overcalling, not missing, was the commoner error, though low suspicion in culture-negative cases meant longer hospital and intensive care stays. The authors urge humility about clinical gestalt in this setting.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Caroline F Zhao, Catherine A Gao, Helen K Donnelly, Erin A Korth, Francisco J Martinez, Bridget Giblin, Lesley Pinzon, Rebecca K Clepp, Wan-Ting Liao, Nandita R Nadig, Benjamin D Singer, Richard G Wunderink, Chiagozie I Pickens |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 36 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |