What are the complications of pneumonia?

by Groshan Fabiola

Pneumonia is a very serious condition that also has some very severe complications. Pneumonia is on the third place on the list of most frequent causes of hospitalization. More than a million and a half people that suffer from pneumonia are hospitalized every year. Although most of the people that suffer from pneumonia respond very well to treatment and most of them are cured, the infection caused by pneumonia is still a serious problem that can bring a lot of complications. In some countries, pneumonia is the first cause of death because of an infection.

The severity of pneumonia depends on several factors like age, the state of their health or weak immune system. However, even if you do not suffer from a very serious case of pneumonia, there is always the risk of developing a complication. The most common pneumonia complications are: abscesses, respiratory failure and bacteremia.

Abscesses are some of the most dangerous pneumonia complications. These are cavities filled with pus that are found in your lungs. Besides the fact that they are filled with pus, these pneumonia complications also have thick walls and they form when the infection that you have has destroyed your lung tissue. These pneumonia complications are the result of a mixture of organisms that are carried into your lungs. If these abscesses are not treated, this can cause hemorrhage and thus can lead to death. However, there are many antibiotics available that can reduce the risk of death or hemorrhage considerably.

Another complication of pneumonia can be respiratory failure. This is actually the main cause of death in patients that suffer from pneumococcal pneumonia. When your lungs are not able to function properly, the quantity of oxygen is reduced and you risk to die. As you can see, this is a very serious pneumonia complication. Failure to breath can happen from the changes in your lungs that occur when you suffer from pneumonia. Failure can also occur when you loose the needed oxygen from your arteries when your pneumonia case results in a very abnormal flow of the blood.

The third pneumonia complication is bacteremia, that means bacteria in your blood. This is one of the complications that mostly happens in cases of streptococcus pneumonia. However, there are few the cases where this infection actually spreads to other locations of your body. Bacteremia is also a very common complication of some other gram negative microbes, which include haemophilus influenzae.

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