AIM Dysphagia and bolus aspiration are two of the most frequent and invalidating symptoms of various neurological diseases. Swallowing disorders often lead to tracheobronchial aspiration with consequent pneumonia episodes. Aspiration pneumonia per se constitutes the most frequent cause of death in these patients, with mortality rate ranging from 20% to 62%. Oropharyngoesophageal scintigraphy (O...

A 19-year-old female with a 3-day history of high temperature, productive cough and dyspnoea was admitted due to diabetic ketoacidosis and pneumonia of the right lower lobe. Antibiotics (amoxicillin-clavulanic acid), insulin, fluids and electrolytes were administered, as appropriate. The patient was doing well (normal temperature, normal glucose levels, normal acid-base balance) until the sixth...

Résumé en anglais Introduction: Psittacosis is a zoonotic infectious disease contracted from birds and caused by Chlamydia psittaci, an obligate intracellular pathogen. In humans, the symptoms of the disease range from inapparent illness to systemic illness with severe pneumonia. Case presentation: A severe case of atypical pneumonia requiring extra‐corporeal membrane oxygenation in a duck bree...

BACKGROUND Broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) is an invasive bedside procedure to define type and concentration of pathologic organisms causing ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP). We evaluated if the absence of pathogens on final results represented a lavage aspect of the BAL as a therapeutic procedure to eliminate organisms. METHODS BAL results collected from 2008 to 2009 were stratified as po...

The clinical severity of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) correlates closely with the appearance of pulmonary markers of inflammation. Therefore, a model system was developed whereby physiological studies could be performed on live mice to determine the extent to which pulmonary inflammation contributes to respiratory impairment during PCP. P. carinii-infected severe combined immunodeficien...

(1) Acute and chronic lung diseases.?True acute pneumonia (indication for alcoholic treatment is rare in view of the usual favourable course of the disease); pneumonia of old people or as a result of injuries ending in sepsis (prognosis often hopeless); lung abscess (useful as an adjunct, but its use docs not exclude surgical interference which remains the only effective treatment); influenzal ...

Pulmonary nocardiosis (PN) is an infrequent and severe infection due to Nocardia spp., which may behave as both opportunistic and primary pathogens. The presentation of a Nocardia infection is quite variable. We report a case of pulmonary nocardiosis in an immunocompetent 24-year-old female, who was initially treated with meropenem without response. A chest radiograph revealed bilateral irregul...

Idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS) refers to diffuse, non-infectious pneumonia that occurs after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). We have developed a model of IPS using a well-characterized murine BMT system (B10.BR-->CBA) in which lung injury after BMT can be induced by minor histocompatibility (H) antigenic differences between donor and host. Lung pathology and broncho-alveolar ...