TY - JOUR T1 - Questions with inconclusive answers JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 1064 LP - 1065 DO - 10.1183/09031936.02.04202002 VL - 20 IS - 4 AU - S. Ewig Y1 - 2002/10/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/20/4/1064.abstract N2 - To the Editor: I read with great interest the study by Prats et al. 1 entitled “Effects of antibiotics on protected specimen brush sampling in ventilator-associated pneumonia” recently published in the European Respiratory Journal. The study demonstrated that the effect of antimicrobial treatment on the diagnostic yield of the bronchoscopically retrieved protected specimen brush (PSB) must be identified according to the microorganism involved. Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae seemed particularly vulnerable to antimicrobial treatment, whereas Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumanii seemed more resistant. But what do these findings implicate in terms of the usefulness of PSB in patients with suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP)? Are we to withhold antimicrobial treatment prior to diagnostic … ER -