Bacterial pneumonia

The word "pneumonia" originates from the ancient Greek word "pneumon" which means
"lung," so the word "pneumonia" becomes "lung disease." Medically it is an inflammation of
one or both lung's parenchyma that is more often but not always caused by infections.
The most common type of bacterial pneumonia is called pneumococcal pneumonia.
Pneumococcal pneumonia is caused by the Streptococcus pneumoniae germ that normally
lives in the upper respiratory tract.
Bacterial pneumonia often affects just one part, or lobe, of a lung. When this happens, the
condition is called lobar pneumonia. Those at greatest risk for bacterial pneumonia include
people recovering from surgery, people with respiratory disease or viral infection and
people who have weakened immune systems.
The approach to evaluate and diagnose pneumonia depends on different modalities but
primarily it is:
- Clinical Evaluation: It includes taking a careful patient history and performing a thorough
physical examination to judge the clinical signs and symptoms.
- Laboratory Evaluation: This includes lab values such as complete blood count with
differentials, inflammatory biomarkers like ESR and C-reactive protein, blood cultures,
sputum analysis or Gram staining and/or urine antigen testing or polymerase chain
reaction for nucleic acid detection of certain bacteria.
- Radiological Evaluation: It includes chest x-ray as an initial imaging test.
Treatments include:
- Antibiotics. It may take time to identify the type of bacteria causing your pneumonia and
to choose the best antibiotic to treat it. If your symptoms don't improve, your doctor may
recommend a different antibiotic.
- Cough medicine. This medicine may be used to calm your cough so that you can rest.
Because coughing helps loosen and move fluid from your lungs, it's a good idea not to
eliminate your cough completely.
- Fever reducers/pain relievers. You may take these as needed for fever and discomfort.

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