Pleurisy (pus in the lungs) is the most dangerous and common disease. In 15% of cases after this ailment, complications appear. In practice, pathology as an independent and separate disease can be met quite rarely. Most often, it arises as a result of the transfer of severe complications. At the first suspicion of this symptom, you should immediately seek qualified medical help at the clinic.
Etiology of the disease
You should understand what this disease is and as a result of which it appears. Pleurisy is an inflammatory process that forms on the membranes surrounding the lung. The disease itself develops very individually. Infectious processes, accompanied by the formation of pus in the lungs, are diverse in their etiology.
If the inflammation is exudative in nature, then a certain amount of fluid accumulates between the pleural lobes. In medicine, such a disease is called pleural empyema. If there is no liquid, then fibrin (protein) begins to be deposited on the surface. In some cases, an accumulation of pus is observed between the lobe cavities of the organ. There are other pathologies that are characterized by the presence of infectious formations. First of all, this is gangrene or lung abscess, which have one common name - acute pulmonary suppuration. They are quite severe and can lead to dangerous consequences, for example, the collapse of the lung tissue, and this is already dangerous for human life. Most often, such a disease awakens due to Staphylococcus aureus, but other microorganisms and enterobacteria can also act as a pathogen.
Pus causes
The causes of pus in the lungs, as well as the consequences, are different:
- if pathogenic foreign bodies enter the human body;
- pneumonia resulting from the formation of anaerobes or staphylococcus;
- tiny organisms that got to a person through the hematogenous route or as a result of transferred prostatitis, as well as the presence of a boil on the upper lip.
Causes of gangrene in the lungs
The causative agent of gangrene is putrefactive infection, which penetrates the body through the bronchogenic pathway. For what reasons does gangrene develop:
- in case of acute pneumonia;
- with bronchiectasis;
- if there is a tumor;
- the presence in the bronchi of foreign bodies;
- wounds on the lung.
Initially, the disease appears in the form of necrosis of the lung parenchyma. In the future, on what kind of microbial flora was introduced, it depends on whether the detachment of the necrotic part will occur, or whether the fusion of pus and serious rotting of the lung will develop.
How to determine if there are purulent formations on the lung?
The main signs of such a disease are: severe pain, a feeling of heaviness, malaise in the side, heavy breathing. The patient develops a cough and shortness of breath, body temperature is above normal, the patient does not leave a feeling of weakness. When pus becomes more and more, the pain slowly subsides. If there is a cough, then it is usually dry. With a relapse of this disease, which developed as a result of a complication of inflammation, profuse dirty sputum appears along with pus. It happens that a cough is simply unbearable, and even comes to seizures, especially at night. Body temperature can rise above 39 degrees, which is very life threatening. She can hold, not falling, or rise after a while. In addition, the pulse of a person becomes more frequent. This happens due to the fact that pus is intoxicated and at the same time the heart moves to the side.
The effects of pus in the lungs
If a person is not provided with qualified help on time, pus can go to the pleural cavity. Along with this, air also accumulates in it. As a result, the patient begins shortness of breath and acute pain. When the disease passes from an advanced stage, scars begin to form on the lung and bronchiectasis develops. Inflammation begins to recur regularly and periodically worsen severely.
Diagnostics
Diagnosis begins with a visual examination, the chest is auditioned and rattled, an anamnesis is collected, however, it will not work to make a true diagnosis only on the basis of the patient's claims. For clarification, laboratory and instrumental studies are needed. As a rule, for the diagnosis of the disease, computed tomography, radiography and ultrasound examination of the chest organs are prescribed. Often, it is required to take the fluid of the pleural region for a test in order to qualify its character. For all this, a puncture is performed under ordinary anesthesia. If there is an assumption that the disease arose due to a pleural tumor, a biopsy is performed - a small part is separated from it with a special probe, which is then sent for a test. A biopsy is still performed under local anesthesia. The main difficulty in identifying such a disease is that its symptoms are pretty skillfully disguised as another disease. The situation is exacerbated even if the patient is not possible to establish regular monitoring. Another disadvantage is that the disease is almost impossible to detect in the initial stages.
To diagnose the disease, the doctor needs to do a considerable number of measures, subsequently combining all the results.
Mandatory Methods
The mandatory methods for examining a patient include:
- attentive conversation on the topic of complaints, listening to the patient about any ailment and clarifying the necessary issues;
- visual inspection;
- laboratory research;
- necessary to appoint the necessary additional examinations;
- use bacteriological methods for studying sputum and fluid obtained during puncture;
- take a chest x-ray;
- make an ultrasound;
- conduct computed tomography;
- if necessary, also make thoracoscopy of the lungs.
Changes in the patient's appearance
Be sure to pay attention to the patient’s skin color, the degree of paleness and condition of the lips. Upon examination, the doctor determines whether the patient has breathing restrictions in that part of the chest that is affected by the disease. Be sure to make tapping on the lungs. All these methods will help the doctor to understand almost exactly how much the disease struck the patient, and what kind of pathology is. If percussion is performed, then in those places where there is purulent accumulation, the sound will be most muffled. In cases where auscultation is performed with a large volume of melting, breathing in the lower part of the patient's lungs may be completely absent.
Treatment
You can cure the disease through surgery. It will be needed only in severe cases. The base of medical treatment of pus in the lungs of a child is based on bactericidal agents. At the beginning, drugs of a wide range of effectiveness are prescribed, and subsequently, according to the results of the analyzes, substances of "point effect" are chosen. In parallel with antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and anesthetic substances should be prescribed.
If pleurisy is considered a consequence of the tumor process, glucocorticoid hormones and substances that slow down the growth of the neoplasm are injected inside. At times, diuretics, cough medicines, and pharmaceuticals are also prescribed to help normal vascular function. Drug therapy is diluted with physiotherapy, in particular, these are all kinds of heating. However, limited treatment does not always bring positive results.
When water accumulates in large quantities, they have a negative effect on other organs. Sometimes an operation has to be carried out more than once, because during its implementation it is possible to pump out no more than one liter of water. Otherwise, there is a risk of damage to internal organs.
How to remove pus from the lungs by other methods? Often the patient needs to periodically drain, and the frequent repetition of such an operation is dangerous. In this case, it is advisable to take the apparatus of the pleural port system, which removes the need for repeated operations. A special port is integrated under the patient’s skin, combined with a drainage tube that is inserted into the pleural cavity. If a pleural effusion occurs, you can only pierce the port membrane and remove the fluid.
Another advantage of the pleural port is the ability to conduct chemotherapy by injecting substances into the affected area directly through this device. This setting allows you to enter drugs for a long period of time. Now the intrapleural port system is one of the popular non-dangerous ways to get rid of stagnation of pleural water.