TY - JOUR T1 - Pneumococcal pneumonia JF - Thorax JO - Thorax DO - 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2019-214135 SP - thoraxjnl-2019-214135 AU - David Goldblatt AU - Elizabeth Miller Y1 - 2019/11/21 UR - http://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2019/11/21/thoraxjnl-2019-214135.abstract N2 - Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) were first licensed in 2000 and have been introduced into national immunisation programme in more than 145 countries. They have had a profound effect on reducing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) caused by serotypes in the vaccine. These reductions have been seen both in infants immunised directly with PCV and in the general population protected indirectly by reduced transmission of pneumococci from immunised infants in whom the vaccine prevented nasopharyngeal carriage. PCV7 (Prevenar7, Pfizer, New York, NY, USA) was first introduced in the UK in 2006 followed by PCV13 (Prevenar13, Pfizer, New York, NY, USA) in 2010. Both vaccines have had a striking impact on vaccine serotype IPD although a trend, seen first following PCV7, for an increase in IPD caused by serotypes not included in the vaccine(s) has been reported.1 Surveillance of the impact of PCVs is focused on IPD, defined as isolation of pneumococcus from an otherwise sterile site, and has been the bedrock of monitoring the serotype-specific impact of vaccination at a population level for many years. It is however, well understood that from a numerical point of view, IPD is only the tip of the iceberg, with pneumonia and otitis media caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae responsible for a much larger burden of disease.In this edition of the journal, Pick and colleagues2 describe the outcome of their prospective population-based study of adult community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in two teaching hospitals in Nottingham, England. They focus on trends in pneumococcal serotype contribution to the burden of adult CAP over 5 years (2013–2018), a period associated with sustained high coverage of PCV13 in the infant schedule.1 Attributing an episode of pneumonia to the pneumococcus is complicated as blood cultures are only positive in approximately 10% of clinical episodes of pneumonia and the … ER -