Community-acquired Pneumonia in Childhood

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is responsible for 15% of deaths in children under 5 years old worldwide and causes 922,000 deaths annually in children and adolescents of all age groups. The CAP is one of the most frequent infectious diseases worldwide and even in Europe is a frequent reason for outpatient presentation and inpatient treatment. The disease is defined as a community acquired inflammation of the lung parenchyma in previously healthy persons. The CAP represents a clinical challenge because the symptoms are mostly unspecific, vary with the age of the patient and the etiology is mostly unclear. This article gives an update on the management of CAP in otherwise healthy children outside the neonatal period. It is essentially based on the current guidelines of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF) published by the Society for Pediatric Pneumology (GPP) and the German Society of Pediatric Infectiology (DGPI), the guidelines of the British Thoracic Society and further literature from PubMed. The German study on pediatric CAP (pedCAP) aims to collect data on CAP in children in Germany and to improve diagnostic and treatment of CAP in children.