It is well known that pneumonia is inflammation.lungs But not everyone knows how difficult the disease is and how dangerous it is, how to deal with it correctly, what are its consequences, features and results of treatment. To help the reader, who does not have medical education, to understand more deeply what pneumonia is, this is the task of this article.
Special medical knowledge about pneumonia today has reached significant scientific and clinical depth. Powerful modern medicines have appeared that help fight and defeat this ailment.
Still, pneumonia continues to die.Especially terrible disease, as in previous times, shows itself among young children. The body of the child is weak, pneumonia can be complicated in a small patient with severe and life-threatening forms.
The essence of the disease is infection of tissueslightweight So, there is an attack of microbes and viruses on the alveoli (miniature vesicles that make up the lung tissue). When the alveoli are healthy, breathing occurs as follows. During a breath in them the oxygen, necessary for life, concentrates. Then through the blood it disperses throughout the body. During exhalation, spent carbon dioxide and other harmful gas impurities leave the body, also with the participation of the alveoli.
X-ray usually defines the picturepneumonia, helping to establish the correct diagnosis. However, clarification and retesting is sometimes required. In this case, it is not desirable to subject the patient to harmful radiation more than once. Therefore, great importance is attached to other, more traditional and safer methods of examination: percussion (percussion with fingers) and auscultation (listening through the “tube” - stethoscope). Pictures of the disease can be so diverse that sometimes it seems to the doctor that it is not a question of pneumonia, but of a whole group of completely different diseases.
The classification of pneumonia is a very complicated procedure.But potential patients (adults), and especially parents of small children, need to have at least a minimal understanding of the forms of pneumonia in order to understand the doctor when discussing and treating the disease.
- Depending on which lung is affected, left-sided, right-sided and bilateral pneumonia differs.
- If the lightest part of the lung is inflamed - a segment (of which the lung lobes consist), segmental pneumonia is found. For example, basal pneumonia is determined on the affected lung root.
- A wider reach of the organ (lung lobe) gives lobar pneumonia. Its most severe form is lobar pneumonia.
- It often happens that to stop the inflammation in time failed. In this case, it covers the entire organ and is called total pneumonia.
Pneumonia is considered primary when it started without being associated with any other disease.
Вторичная пневмония вызывается другими diseases (a common option - due to bronchitis) and accompanies them. When secondary pneumonia is treated, first of all, the main disease and in parallel - the pneumonia itself.
One of the most dangerous pneumonia isimmunodeficient. It attacks patients with weakened immunity, incl. newborns whose protection does not yet have time to develop. Appearing against the background of immunodeficiency, such pneumonia seizes the resources of the whole organism, which cannot resist it. Mortality from such pneumonia is very high.
When hospital (nosocomial) pneumoniahospital patients (especially the elderly) and babies in maternity hospitals are infected with the most dangerous microorganisms that can withstand antibiotics. Community-acquired pneumonia is not associated with such infections.
What is pneumonia caused by different microorganisms?
The causative agents of pneumonia are usuallypneumococcal bacteria. In the same group with them - streptococcus, staphylococcus, pyocyanic stick. These microbes, despite their extreme activity and danger, are susceptible to antibiotics.
It’s harder to build a treatment strategy ifpneumonia is caused by special microorganisms - Klebsiella and Legionella, Chlamydia and Mycoplasma. This flora is a transitional form between the bacterium and the virus. It is resistant to many antibiotics. Such pathogens are able to infect the lungs and bronchi in a short time, capturing an increasingly extensive part of the organ. They are often the cause of hospital pneumonia. The scenario of the development of the disease in such cases is from focal pneumonia to total, the prognosis is difficult.
Pathogens are twofold in the lung tissueby: through the respiratory system or through the bloodstream. Passing to the bronchi, the microorganisms settle in them and begin to multiply. At this stage, observing one or another form of bronchitis, the doctor makes a conclusion about the inflammation of the bronchioles (bronchial branches in the pulmonary lobules). The spread of the inflammatory process from the bronchioles along the alveoli causes focal pneumonia. Next in the alveoli appears the product of the activity of microorganisms - liquid. It overlaps the lumen of the blood vessels, and oxygen from the lungs ceases to flow from the lungs. The danger of this stage can not even comment.
Methods for the diagnosis of pneumonia are divided into primary and secondary.
The main methods are:
- X-ray examination;
- sputum collection for microscopic examination;
- sputum collection for seeding (culture of microorganisms allowed to multiply in the laboratory, the process of reproduction is observed and investigated);
- taking a complete blood count;
- blood tests for biochemistry;
- blood gas analysis.
Additional methods:
- computed tomographic examination;
- pulmonary biopsy;
- urine test.
The choice of methods remains for the doctor, who proceeds from the picture of the symptoms and syndromes of pneumonia.
For treatment, as a rule, antibiotics are selected. The more precisely they are selected, the more successful the struggle with the disease will be.
In our time, vaccinations against pneumococcus have appeared. Practice has shown that they are effective. It is necessary to do them to a child of preschool age in the terms prescribed by the doctor.
Even if pneumonia is cured, it leaves unhealthy traces in the body, which can further contribute to the development of chronic diseases.
To illustrate this statement, consider what segmental pneumonia is and touch the issue of mycoplasmal pneumonia.
Since segmental pneumonia affects only a portion of the lung tissue, the boundaries of the affected area are clearly visible on an X-ray. This somewhat simplifies the task of diagnosis.
If segmental pneumonia occurs withoutcomplications, it can develop cyclically (with withdrawals and return of symptoms). Resorption of the affected tissue occurs approximately from the 5th to the 9th day from the onset of the disease.
Atelectases often occur (the lung subsides, cannot be straightened out and loses respiratory activity in the affected area).
When atelectasis occurs, the disease acquiresprotracted nature - weeks and months. The collapsed lung tissue is germinated by fibrous (connective) tissue. Fibrous tissue is not capable of performing specialized functions, it cannot participate in breathing. Fibrous zones are formed in the lungs, in terms of respiration, dead ones.
As a result of segmental pneumonia, chronic pneumonia and pneumosclerosis (a disease of excessive atelectasis) can develop.
Pneumosclerosis is incurable. The patient will be tortured for life severe shortness of breath. The body, due to lack of respiratory function, will constantly experience oxygen starvation.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is caused by a pathogen,which is resistant to some antibiotics (penicillin, streptomycin, etc.). At the same time, mycoplasma can not resist the tetracycline antibiotics.
Mycoplasma lives in the urinary organs.From there, with the bloodstream, it enters the respiratory system. The carrier of the infection, unwittingly, can infect a healthy person with airborne droplets (breathe on it, sneeze or cough), and also during sexual contact. This pneumonia is terrible for pregnant women: there is a danger of intrauterine infection of the fetus.
The disease occurs in the following forms:
- acute respiratory disease (inflammation of the internal surfaces of the respiratory tract);
- acute pneumonia;
- urethritis (inflammation of the urethra);
- gynecological inflammatory diseases.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is treated with tetracycline, andas well as special procedures against pneumonia of any kind. Such procedures include treatment with oxygen and bronchodilators (medications, as a result of which the bronchi expand, and the air gets access to the lungs).
The prognosis of mycoplasma pneumonia is favorable. However, if you do not notice the onset of the disease and it is too late to begin treatment, there may be complications up to death.
A small excursion into the science of pneumonia withan attempt to clarify what pneumonia is, allows the reader to be reminded of the danger of this disease. Dry, “barking” cough, which is becoming more and more intense and painful with each passing hour, low temperature, lack of response to antipyretic drugs is a reason for immediate medical attention. Especially when it comes to children of preschool age and the elderly.
