Neurological Medicine and The Headache Care Center

Pneumonia

Pneumonia - an infectious inflammation of the lungs that affects the alveoli of the lung or other tissues. Pneumonia can result from a variety of pathogens - bacteria, viruses, fungi. Therefore, there are many kinds of pneumonia, each of which has its own symptoms and features of the course. there is always a certain number of certain bacteria in the lungs of healthy person. And in most cases, the immune system fights well with them. But when the body is weakened and can not cope with them, there is an active development of pneumonia.

Therefore, it is often pneumonia occurs as a complication after suffering before colds.

SARS

SARS. How is it different from an ordinary pneumonia?

As shown by clinical studies, SARS has a number of characteristic features of the development and treatment, however, such features are not always present. As we said in the article "What could be pneumonia", typical or atypical pneumonia, is determined not only the type of pathogen, but the individual characteristics of the organism. So often "atypical pathogens" (mycoplasma, chlamydia, legionella) causing quite "typical" pneumonia. Currently, the diagnosis of "atypical pneumonia" is set mainly in patients younger than 40 years.

The causative agents of SARS: Mycoplasma, Chlamydia, Legionella, and viruses.

Microbes are agents of atypical pneumonia were discovered much later bacteria. This is due to the fact that these organisms have some microbial characteristics, which are largely difficult to growing cultures of these microbes. Mycoplasma, Legionella and Chlamydia - are microscopic germs that are both similar and bacteria and viruses. These bacteria multiply within the cells of the human body, and, unlike conventional bacteria, almost unable to live outside the cells, "the master." Thus, these microbes may be called "intracellular parasites." This feature of atypical pneumonia pathogens (mycoplasma, Chlamydia and Legionella) makes them similar to the viruses which can also exist outside the body of the "master".

Viruses can also be the causative agents of atypical pneumonia. Probably, many remember the epidemic of severe atypical pneumonia that hit the east of the country (Japan, China, etc.). The causative agent of the pneumonia was a virus from the coronavirus group. Also, viral inflammation of the lung may occur against the background of influenza, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus infection (RS) infection.

Symptoms

The feature of atypical pneumonia is the prevalence of symptoms of intoxication, which overshadow the pulmonary manifestations, lack of infiltrative changes on chest radiography in the early days of the disease (interstitial type). The course of pneumonia is unpredictable: they may occur as malosimptomno and hard, with the development of life-threatening complications. The difficulties of diagnosis and variety of clinics often cause delay in the patient's admission to hospital, late diagnosis and difficulties in the selection of therapy.

Complications

SARS is characterized by high fever, lesions of the upper respiratory tract, the development of bilateral pneumonia, severe respiratory failure and relatively high mortality. The new coronavirus with the invasion of the human body leads to a marked immunosuppressive effect is caused by the frequent connection of fungal and bacterial flora.