BACKGROUND: Among infectious diseases, community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is the leading cause of death in the United States and is associated with a substantial economic burden to the health care system. Initiating appropriate empiric therapy can be…
Streptococcus pneumoniae is the leading bacterial cause of community-acquired respiratory tract infections. Prior to the 1970s this pathogen was uniformly susceptible to penicillin and most other antimicrobials. However, since the 1990s there has…