Evaluation of the BioFire® FilmArray® Pneumonia Panel for rapid detection of respiratory bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes in sputum and endotracheal aspirate specimens.

•The BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia Panel was evaluated with sputa and endotracheal aspiration samples.•A high sensitivity (98.5%) was found for the detection of typical respiratory bacteria.•The panel provided sensitive detection of antibiotic resistance genes.•The panel provided a semi-quantitative analysis of bacterial amounts by bacterial nucleic acid copy number.•There was a good correlation between semi-quantitative analysis and culture at higher copy numbers.