Abstract
Importance of the field: Pneumonia is an acute infectious illness of the lower respiratory tract that is difficult to diagnose owing to the large number of possible pathogens. At present there is no single test capable of rapidly determining the etiology of pneumonia in patients.
Areas covered in this review: This article reviews current approaches for diagnosing the cause of pneumonia and discusses the potential for the development of clinically relevant metabolomics assays. It also examines the possibility of using NMR spectroscopy as an analytical tool for this application.
What the reader will gain: The reader will be introduced to metabolomics as it pertains to infectious disease, including two recent articles on metabolomic profiles in pneumonia as well as NMR technology in order to gain a better understanding of the development of this technology as it pertains to the field of pneumonia diagnostics.
Take home message: NMR-based metabolomics may lend itself to rapid diagnosis of the etiology of pneumonia and has the potential to become an important screening method. If proven in larger clinical studies, this test may become feasible in the clinic and assist physicians with determining the best course of treatment, help with monitoring treatment efficacy, and provide valuable global disease surveillance information. Furthermore, metabolomics studies of infectious disease may provide insights into the mode of pathogen infection and uncover new approaches for generating new classes of pharmaceuticals.
Notes
This box summarizes key points contained in the article.