Pulmonary diseases

Chapter 1

Pulmonary diseases

13 topics

  1. 1Acute bronchitis, tracheobronchitis, bronchiolitisA cough that follows a viral infection of the large airways, and why most of it needs no antibiotic; with bronchiolitis, its small-airway counterpart in infants.
  2. 2Chronic bronchitis, pulmonary emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseAirflow limitation that does not fully reverse, from damaged small airways and lung tissue, usually caused by smoking; how it is staged, treated and followed.
  3. 3Respiratory failure – pathophysiology, and clinical featuresWhen the lungs or the muscles that move them can no longer keep the blood's oxygen and carbon dioxide in range, why it happens, how it shows, and how it is supported.
  4. 4Bacterial community – acquired pneumoniaPneumonia caught outside hospital, mostly by pneumococcus and its fellow pyogenic bacteria, with a lobe filling with pus, and how severity decides where it is treated.
  5. 5Nonbacterial community – acquired pneumoniaPneumonia caused by viruses, fungi and the atypical organisms that do not look like pus on a film, how each one shows, and why the antibiotic that works for pneumococcus often does not.
  6. 6Hospital – acquired pneumonia and pneumonia in immunocompromised patientsPneumonia that starts in hospital, or in a body whose defences are down, where the organisms are resistant gram-negatives and opportunists and the treatment depends on how long the patient has been there and what is wrong with their immunity.
  7. 7Treatment of pneumoniasHow to treat a pneumonia before the organism is known, which antibiotic for which severity, how long, and what to do when the patient does not get better.
  8. 8Purulent diseases – bronchiectasis, pulmonary abscessTwo chronic suppurative diseases of the lung, one in which the airways are permanently widened and fill with infected mucus, and one in which a pocket of lung dies and fills with pus.
  9. 9Pleural effusionsFluid in the pleural space, which is a sign of a disease in the chest or elsewhere, and what its protein, cells, glucose and acidity say about the cause.
  10. 10Pulmonary TuberculosisAn airborne infection with a slow bacillus that hides in granulomas for years, how it reactivates in the lung apex, and the six months of combined drugs that cure it.
  11. 11Pulmonary embolismA clot from the leg veins that lodges in the pulmonary arteries, how it strains the right heart, how to decide whether it is there without scanning everyone, and how long to anticoagulate.
  12. 12Lung cancerThe commonest fatal cancer, mostly from smoking, how its cell type and mutations decide treatment, and why catching it early with a scan changes the outcome.
  13. 13Diffuse parenchymal pulmonary diseasesThe diseases that inflame or scar the lung tissue itself, from sarcoidosis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis to the vasculitides, and why finding the cause comes before choosing a treatment.