High heterogeneity in community-acquired pneumonia inclusion criteria: does this impact on the validity of the results of randomized controlled trials?

Table 2 Frequency of the pneumonia diagnostic criteria in the 47 trials

Criteria	CAP diagnostic criteria
	Cited		Mandatory
	N	%	N	%
At least one respiratory sign or symptom	47	100	25	53
Dyspnoea or polypnea	40	85	2	4
Chest pain	22	47	1	2
Cough	44	94	4	9
Purulent sputum	30	64	2	4
Sputum	18	38	3	6
At least one pulmonary auscultation abnormality	40	85	3	6
Rales	24	51
Crackles	10	21
Pulmonary consolidation	26	55
Other abnormality	10	21
Unspecified	10	21
Focal abnormality	2	4
General symptoms: fever	46	98	9	17
At least one biological abnormality	30	64	3	6
Leucocytosis	23	49
C-reactive protein increase	5	11
Procalcitonin increase	1	2
Streptococcus pneumoniae antigenuria	1	2
Pulmonary infiltrate compatible with CAP^a on chest X-ray	45	96	44	94
Recent infiltrate	38	81	38	81
Lobar or multilobar infiltrate	5	11	5	11

ISSN: 1471-2334