Management of community-acquired pneumonia in the physician's office

The classical form of a community-acquired pneumonia is that caused by infection with pneumococcus, and differs clinically from atypical pneumonia in particular by fever-related differences. The diagnosis is based on the five cardinal symptoms: fever, cough, sputum production, pleuritic chest pain and a pulmonary infiltrate. Depending on whether there are further risk factors involved, a more or less comprehensive clinical and laboratory diagnostic work-up is needed. As a rule, oral antibiotic treatment with aminopenicillin, macrolides, fluorchinolones, ketolides or cephalosporins is applied, but decision-taking is also codetermined, for example, by whether an atypical pneumonia is suspected, or whether additional risk factors need to be taken into account.