We compared the clinical characteristics and antibiotic therapy of community-acquired pneumonia patients who were positive on a respiratory virus molecular test (polymerase chain reaction) with those who were negative. We found that respiratory virus molecular polymerase chain reaction testing has a minimal impact on reducing antibiotic utilization among viral pneumonia patients.

Four commercially available rapid agglutination tests for the identification of Staphylococcus aureus were compared with the tube coagulase test for the identification of 300 methicillin-resistant isolates of staphylococci. Isolates tested included 207 methicilin-resistant S. aureus and 93 coagulase-negative staphylococci, collected from five medical centers. Strain variability was documented by phage typing and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Results of rapid identification tests ranged between 82 and 86%o sensitivity, significantly poorer than the 98% sensitivity which the tube coagulase test provided.

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