It is well known that pneumonia is pneumonia. 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 treatment results. To help a reader who does not have a medical education understand more deeply what pneumonia is, the task of this article.
Special medical knowledge about pneumonia today has reached considerable scientific and clinical depth. Powerful modern medicines have appeared to help fight this disease and defeat it.
Nevertheless, they continue to die from pneumonia. Especially terrible disease, as in previous times, shows itself among young children. The child’s body is weak, pneumonia can be complicated in a small patient by severe and life-threatening forms.
The essence of the disease is infection of the lung tissue. This means that there is an attack of microbes and viruses on the alveoli (miniature vesicles that make up lung tissue). When the alveoli are healthy, breathing occurs as follows. During inhalation, the oxygen necessary for life is concentrated in them. Then, through the blood, it disperses throughout the body. During exhalation, the exhaust carbon dioxide and other harmful gas impurities leave the body, also with the participation of the alveoli.
An x-ray usually determines the picture of pneumonia, helping to establish the correct diagnosis. However, clarification and re-verification are sometimes required. In this case, exposing the patient to harmful radiation more than once is not advisable. Therefore, great importance is attached to other, more traditional and safe methods of examination: percussion (tapping with fingers) and auscultation (listening through a “tube” - a stethoscope). The pictures of the disease can be so diverse that sometimes it seems to the doctor that it is not a question of pneumonia, but a whole group of completely different diseases.
Classification of pneumonia is a very complicated procedure. But potential patients (adults), and especially parents of young children, need to have at least a minimal understanding of the forms of pneumonia in order to understand the doctor in the discussion and treatment of the disease.
- Depending on which lung is affected, pneumonia is left-sided, right-sided and bilateral.
- If the smallest part of it is inflamed in the lung - the segment (the lobes of the lung consist of them), segmental pneumonia is detected. For example, basal pneumonia is determined on the affected root of the lung.
- A wider coverage of the organ (lung lobe) gives lobar pneumonia. Its most severe form is lobar pneumonia.
- It often happens that it was not possible to stop inflammation on time. In this case, it covers the entire organ and is called total pneumonia.
Pneumonia is considered primary when it started without any connection with any other disease.
Secondary pneumonia is caused by other diseases (a common option is due to bronchitis) and is associated with them. With secondary pneumonia, first of all, the main disease is treated and, in parallel, pneumonia itself.
One of the most dangerous pneumonia is immunodeficiency. It attacks patients with weakened immunity, including newborns whose protection does not yet have time to develop. Arising 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.
With hospital (nosocomial) pneumonia, hospital patients (especially the elderly) and infants in maternity hospitals become infected with dangerous microorganisms that can resist antibiotics. Community-acquired pneumonia is not associated with such infections.
What is pneumonia caused by various microorganisms?
The causative agents of pneumonia, as a rule, are bacteria of pneumococcus. In the same group with them - streptococcus, staphylococcus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These microbes, despite their extreme activity and danger, are susceptible to antibiotics.
It is more difficult to build a treatment strategy if pneumonia is caused by special microorganisms - Klebsiella and Legionella, Chlamydia and Mycoplasma. This flora is a transitional form between a bacterium and a virus. It is resistant to many antibiotics. Such pathogens are able to affect the lungs and bronchi in a short time, capturing an increasingly vast area of the organ. They often turn out to be the cause of hospital pneumonia. The scenario of the development of the disease in such cases - from focal pneumonia to total, the prognosis is difficult.
Pathogens appear in the lung tissue in two ways: through the respiratory system or through the bloodstream. Passing to the bronchi, microorganisms settle in them and begin to multiply. At this stage, observing this or that form of bronchitis, the doctor concludes that bronchioles are inflamed (bronchial branches in the pulmonary segments). The spread of the inflammatory process from bronchioles through the alveoli causes focal pneumonia. Further in the alveoli appears the product of the activity of microorganisms - liquid. It blocks the lumens of the blood vessels, and oxygen ceases to flow from the lungs to the blood. The danger of this stage can not even comment.
Diagnostic methods for pneumonia are divided into basic and additional.
The main methods are:
- X-ray examination;
- sputum collection for microscopic examination;
- taking sputum for sowing (microorganism culture is allowed to breed in the laboratory, the process of reproduction is observed and examined);
- taking a general blood test;
- blood test for biochemistry;
- blood gas analysis.
Additional methods:
- computed tomographic examination;
- taking a lung biopsy;
- urinalysis.
The choice of methods remains with the doctor, who proceeds from the picture of the symptoms and syndromes of pneumonia.
For treatment, as a rule, antibiotics are selected. The more accurately they are selected, the more successful will be the fight against the disease.
Nowadays, vaccinations against pneumococcus have appeared. Practice has shown that they are effective. They must be done by a child of preschool age in the time prescribed by the doctor.
Even if pneumonia is cured, it leaves unhealthy traces in the body that can further contribute to the development of chronic diseases.
To illustrate this statement, we consider what segmental pneumonia is and touch upon the issue of mycoplasma pneumonia.
Since only segment of lung tissue is affected with segmental pneumonia, the borders of the affected area are clearly visible on the x-ray. This makes the diagnosis a little easier.
If segmental pneumonia proceeds without complications, it can develop cyclically (with the withdrawal and return of symptoms). Resorption of the affected tissue occurs approximately from the 5th to the 9th day from the onset of the disease.
Atelectasis often occurs (the lung subsides, cannot straighten out and loses respiratory activity in the affected area).
With the appearance of atelectasis, the disease becomes protracted - 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 respiration. Fibrous zones form in the lungs, from the point of view of breathing, they are dead.
As a result of segmental pneumonia, chronic pneumonia and pneumosclerosis (an excess of atelectasis disease) can develop.
Pneumosclerosis is incurable. The patient will suffer severe shortness of breath for life. The body, due to insufficient respiratory function, will constantly experience oxygen starvation.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is caused by a pathogen that is resistant to certain antibiotics (penicillin, streptomycin, etc.). At the same time, mycoplasma cannot resist tetracycline antibiotics.
Mycoplasma lives in the urogenital organs. From there, it enters the respiratory system with blood flow. An infectious agent, not wanting it himself, can infect a healthy person by airborne droplets (breathe on it, sneeze or cough), as well as through 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, as 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 begin treatment too late, complications are possible up to death.
A short excursion into the science of pneumonia with an attempt to explain what pneumonia is, allows you to remind the reader of the danger of this disease. A dry, “barking” cough, which is becoming stronger and more painful with each passing hour, a low temperature, and a lack of reaction to antipyretic drugs, is an occasion for immediate medical attention. Especially when it comes to preschool children and the elderly.