Time to embrace the molecular approach for respiratory pathogen screening

The current gold standard for clinical pathogen identification relies on a combination of culture-based methods, target-specific molecular techniques, and antigen-detection assays ¹ . Known limitations of the first method include the requirement for viable and culturable microorganisms, while the second approach is constrained to a limited number of predefined targets. These constraints reduce their diagnostic success, as not all pathogens are culturable, easily isolated from commensal microbiota, or represented in the selected detection panels. While culture-based methods are widely recognized for their limited sensitivity, updated quantifications of their actual performance in real-world clinical settings are scarce.

To address this gap, we conducted a retrospective survey of all lower respiratory tract (LRT) samples processed by either culture or target-based molecular methods over a five-year period at a Portuguese hospital centre, providing a quantitative assessment of current diagnostic performance.