Abstract:
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Dear Editor,
We thank the authors for the interest in
our recent publication and for their useful
comments.
Unfortunately we consider the comparison
with the publication from Giannella
et al1 poorly appropriate in many aspects.
The main strength of our work is the
multicentre prospective case–control study
design (match by age, gender and period of
hospitalisation). Although severity scores
were not used for matching, we considered
this design the most appropriate to describe
healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP)
features. In fact, the Giannella group
performed an observational prospective
study only on patients admitted to internal
medicine departments: these elements
(study design and patients) could justify a
different population composition and,
consequently, different microbiological and
clinical findings. In fact, in comparison... |