The management of severe community acquired pneumonia in the intensive care unit

Severe CAP (SCAP), accounting for 6% of admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) needs early diagnosis and aggressive interventions at the most proximal point of disease presentation. The prognostic scores as the ATS/IDSA rule, the systolic blood pressure, multilobar infiltrates, albumin, respiratory rate, tachycardia, confusion, oxygen and pH or SCAP system are appropriate in early identification of eligible patients requiring admission to ICU. Then the recommended initial resuscitation in SCAP in the ICU consists of fluid volume intake titrated to specific goals after a fluid challenge and hemodynamic optimization. The first selection of antimicrobial therapy should be started in the first hour and would be broad enough to cover all likely pathogens. Combination therapy may be useful in patients with non refractory septic shock and severe sepsis pneumococcal bacteremia as well. After 6 hours the patient would be reevaluated in terms of hemodynamic stability and antibiotic and therapy. Future developments will focus on sepsis biomarkers, molecular diagnostic techniques and the development of novel therapeutic immunomodulaty agents.