Results
Patients admitted with suspected CAP were enrolled from March 1, 2021 to February 28, 2022. The last follow-up for mortality and readmission was on April 1, 2022. We screened 379 patients for eligibility and collected 294 (77.6%) LRT samples (78.4% tracheal secretions and 21.6% expectorated sputa) from patients who underwent randomisation. The 294 patients were allocated to either the POC-PCR group (148 patients (50.4%)) or the SCO group (146 patients (49.6%)), and those patients were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. Per protocol analyses for the primary outcome included 291 (99.0%) patients with no or narrow antibiotic treatment registered within 4 h (POC-PCR 145 (49.8%) and SCO 146 (50.2%)) (