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Purpose of Review: After decades of neglect, the importance of establishing an aetiological diagnosis for community-acquired and atypical pneumonias has increased dramatically in recent years--driven by the movement towards more rational use of antibiotics, the further spread of antimicrobial resistance, and advances in point-of-care assays that circumvent the diagnostic delays that result from the centralization of laboratories., Recent Findings: There have been very few developments in patient sampling, or the direct visualization, culture, and serological detection of respiratory pathogens. There has, however, been significant interest in the development of improved and more clinically useful assays for the detection of pathogen nucleic acids and proteins, and also in the potential utility of the assessment of host response for tailoring therapy., Summary: The majority of patients have yet to benefit from any advances. However, nucleic acid, newer protein, and possibly host-response assays have significant potential to influence patient care in the near future.

Purpose of Review: This article focuses on two novel asthma therapies - antibiotics and a procedure, bronchial thermoplasty. The challenges of identifying which treatment would best help an individual patient can be addressed by use of noninvasive measurements to define their asthma., Recent Findings: Asthma is heterogeneous. Methods can be applied that define different phenotypes. We can now obtain a more detailed description of physiological changes, for example with bronchial provocation, and inflammatory changes, for example with exhaled nitric oxide or sputum cell analysis, in patients with airway symptoms. These measurements help define disease mechanisms and are especially informative when patients do not respond to standard therapy. Furthermore, detailed phenotyping may help identify who is most likely to benefit from newly developed, more specific therapies ranging from antagonists of individual mediators, for example anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha or anti-immunoglobulin E, to interventions that directly address structural determinants of asthma, for example bronchial thermoplasty., Summary: Asthma treatment is evolving beyond the current cornerstones of bronchodilation, leukotriene antagonism and corticosteroids. This change will be propelled by a more detailed description of individual patients' disease that will enable customization of treatment, and the development of specific interventions that modify disease mechanisms, including airway remodelling.

Purpose of Review: The assessment of pretest probability, allowing the categorization of patients clinically suspected of having pulmonary embolism in low, intermediate, and high clinical probability, is an essential step in contemporary diagnostic strategies because it permits limiting the number of additional diagnostic tests, especially invasive tests. Clinical probability can be evaluated implicitly or by prediction rules. Two prediction rules for pulmonary embolism have been described: the Canadian prediction rule (the Wells score) and the Geneva prediction rule. Their original descriptions were published in 2000 and 2001, respectively. These prediction rules need to be externally validated, and, ideally, outcome studies should demonstrate that patients may be safely treated on the basis of the assessment of the clinical probability they provide. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss the external validation of these rules, because this particular point has been only recently achieved., Recent Findings: Application of both rules in an external setting and in a prospective study have confirmed their validity. A recent study suggests that the best evaluation is probably based on a prediction rule associated with possible clinical override., Summary: Studies comparing an empiric assessment with explicit assessment, such as the Wells simplified score or the Geneva score, have shown that the three tools show similar accuracy. External validation and use of both rules in prospective management studies have only recently been performed and have confirmed their validity. Some reports suggest that empiric assessment may be influenced by level of training. Objective prediction rules seems to be less influenced by experience and should be preferred by more junior doctors. The tool used for clinical probability assessment is probably less important than the principle of a careful clinical probability assessment in each patient with suspected pulmonary embolism.

Purpose of Review: Diagnosing occupational asthma (OA) is a complex undertaking, the primary goal of which is to demonstrate a causal relation between exposure to a specific agent encountered at work and asthmatic responses. Recent development or refinement of diagnostic tools may improve the diagnostic accuracy, which may have important economic and social consequences for both employers and workers., Recent Findings: Although specific inhalation challenge (SIC) testing is the gold standard for diagnosis of OA, these tests are not widely available in many countries. Thus, new less invasive techniques used in the measurement of airway inflammation, such as exhaled nitric oxide and induced sputum are highlighted as are recent developments in both in vivo and in vitro immunologic testing., Summary: Although new perspectives are being evaluated, the diagnosis of occupational asthma still relies mostly on specific inhalation challenge. Further studies are required to confirm the utility of these new techniques in the diagnosis of OA.