New Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) Guidelines

The diagnosis and management of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in infants and children is challenging. Variability in management is common.¹ Clinical practice guidelines jointly developed by members of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS) and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) provide evidence-based recommendations for child care practitioners and are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other professional organizations.

The 13 authors who developed the CAP guidelines, representing general pediatricians and infectious disease and critical care experts, applied the GRADE^2,3 (Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) systematic method to devise the 92 recommendations. They considered the methodologic quality, the balance between desirable and undesirable effects of the recommendation, and the applicability of the recommendation to a large number of children and clinical …