[Initial management of community-acquired pneumonia]

There continue to be major controversies in the management of community-acquires pneumonia, concerning either investigations, decision to hospitalize and antibiotic therapy. All authors agree that a chest radiography must be obtained in all cases, and two sets of blood cultures for hopitalized patients but there is there controversies about other microbiological tests. Decision to hospitalize must be based on clinical judgement but can be helped by Fine's predictive rule. Initial therapy is almost always empiric, antibiotic selection being primarily based on disease severity.