DISCUSSION
Early identification of causative agents in LRTI,
can reduce morbidity and prevent an overuse
of antimicrobials. Conventional methods, such
as culture and serology are not always adequate
to detect lower respiratory tract pathogens.
Therefore, new diagnosis methods are needed. So,
we designed and performed this study to evaluate
multiplex PCR and conventional culture method
for their clinical efficacy. In our study, the rate of
bacterial identification in clinical samples by PCR
method was 63.5% while it was roughly half that in
the culture method (31.5%).
It is well known that conventional culture tests
have low sensitivity and specificity for detecting
microorganisms.5-7 The other disadvantageous
are in requirement of different culture media for
different organisms and due to many variety of
microorganisms the results are difficult to interpret.
In the literature, many studies have reported
higher pathogen identification rates with the PCR
method.11-16 In a study conducted with pneumonia
patients, microbial agents were detected in 39.1% of
patients using the culture method while this ratio
was 65.2% when using a PCR method.16 In another
study conducted with BAL samples from 156 LRTI
patients, investigators reported that the pathogen