Assessment of the Diagnostic Capacity of a New Sampling Technique for Lower Respiratory Tract Culture for Patients With Acute Infectious Pneumonia Admitted in Intensive Care Unit and Non Intubated.

At the moment we lack an effective and safe technique to obtain lower respiratory tract cultures for patient with mild serious infectious pneumonia admitted in intensive care unit and non intubated. Invasive procedure may worsen respiratory distress and non invasive procedure such expectorated sputum culture is not enough effective. The purpose of the study is to assess the microbiological diagnosis capacity of a new technique for taking samples from the lower respiratory tract: mini bronchoalveolar lavage performed by naso tracheal way through a suction catheter.Each consecutive patient admitted in intensive care unit for a community acquired or nosocomial pneumonia and not requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation will be included. Written informed consent by patient himself will be required. For each patient, after the introduction of a suction catheter, an endotracheal aspiration will be performed. Then, the mini bronchoalveolar lavage will be performed through the suction catheter with a specific catheter.The whole time of the procedure is about ten minutes.Expectorated sputum will also be ordered for each patient.This study is a pilot and prospective study.