Procalcitonin as a Marker of Etiology in Adults Hospitalized With Community-Acquired Pneumonia

To the Editor—We appreciate the comments from Abers and Musher [1] in response to our recent article describing the association between procalcitonin and etiology in community-acquired pneumonia [2]. We agree with them that withholding antibiotics from a patient with bacterial pneumonia has the potential to harm the patient and should be avoided. Based on the principle of never missing bacterial pneumonia, nearly all adults with pneumonia diagnosed in the United States are empirically treated with antibiotics [3, 4]. However, many adults with pneumonia seem to have nonbacterial disease [2, 3], meaning that many do not benefit from antibiotics.