Pneumonia is an acute lung inflammation in which the lungs fill with a fibrous material, impairing gas exchange. With poor gas exchange, the blood has too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen.
People with normal lungs and adequate immune defenses usually recover fully. However, pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
Classifying pneumonia
Pneumonia can be classified by location or type, as well as cause .
• Location: Bronchopneumonia involves the lungs and small airways of the respiratory tract. Lobular pneumonia involves part of a lobe of the lung. Lobar pneumonia involves an entire lobe .
• Type: Primary pneumonia occurs when a person inhales or aspirates a disease-producing microorganism; it includes pneumococcal and viral pneumonia. Secondary pneumonia may occur in someone who’s suffered lung damage from a noxious chemical or other insult, or it may be caused by the blood-borne spread of bacteria from a distant site.
What causes it?
Pneumonia can be caused by a virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoa, mycobacterium, mycoplasma, or rickettsia.
Certain factors can predispose a person to bacterial and viral pneumonia-chronic illness and debilitation, cancer (especially lung cancer), abdominal or chest surgery, atelectasis (the collapse of air sacs in the lung), the flu, common colds or other viral respiratory infections, chronic respiratory disease (such a, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, bronchiectasis, or cystic fibrosis), smoking, malnutrition, alcoholism, sickle cell disease, tracheostomy, exposure to harmful gases, aspiration, and drugs that suppress the immune system.
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