Procalcitonin as a Marker of Etiology in Community-Acquired Pneumonia

To the Editor—Ongoing analysis of data from the landmark Etiology of Pneumonia in the Community (EPIC) study of pneumonia in adults [1] continues to yield important and useful results. Self et al [2] have most recently analyzed procalcitonin levels in patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). They found that, with the usually accepted cutoff of 0.25 ng/mL, the sensitivity of a positive result in detecting bacterial pneumonia was 76.3%.