Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infections Including Pneumonia; Clinical Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment: A Narrative Review

Acute respiratory infections including Lower respiratory tract infections are the commons’ infection in children and the main cause for antibacterial over-prescription in the world. Pneumonia is the leading cause of mortality in young children worldwide. Early diagnosis and empiric antibacterial therapy is an important strategy to improve outcome. World Health Organization has developed care-management guidelines to reduce pneumonia-related mortality in developing countries. This strategy was very efficacious in reducing mortality rate in developing countries. Recently evidence-based guidelines for management of infants and children with pneumonia were prepared by an expert committee. These guidelines are developed for the management of infants and children with pneumonia in both out-patients and in-patients setting. Our aims in this paper was to review guidelines developed for pneumonia care-management for developing and developed countries and to define the most appropriate strategies for our region and possibly country.