Journal Pre-proof Can sputum gram stain be used to predict lower respiratory tract infection and guide empiric antimicrobial treatment: Experience from a tertiary care hospital Jayanthi Gunasekaran, Rushika Saksena, Manisha Jain, Rajni Gaind PII: S0167-7012(19)30312-4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mimet.2019.105731 Reference: MIMET 105731 To appear in: Journal of Microbiological Methods Received date: 16 April 2019 Revised date: 23 September 2019 Accepted date: 27 September 2019 Please cite this article as: J. Gunasekaran, R. Saksena, M. Jain, et al., Can sputum gram stain be used to predict lower respiratory tract infection and guide empiric antimicrobial treatment: Experience from a tertiary care hospital, Journal of Microbiological Methods (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mimet.2019.105731 This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. © 2019 Published by Elsevier.