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<i>Mycoplasma pneumoniae</i> pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia and viral pneumonia

2010; Elsevier BV; Volume: 86; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2223/jped.2058

1678-4782

Kyung‐Yil Lee, You‐Sook Youn, Jae‐Wook Lee, Jin-Han Kang,

Microbial infections and disease research

neumonia is one of the most frequent diseases treated by pediatricians. The majority of pneumonia patients recover uneventfully as a self-limited disease, but some patients experience a severe clinical course and even death. The difference of clinical course is associated with the virulence of etiologic agents and/or the host immune status. Antibiotics for bacterial pathogens and antivirals, if possible, for viral pathogens may help induce early recovery from pneumonia by reducing the number of pathogens and the host immune response to etiologic agents. The circulating immune cells including neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes may be involved in the pathogenesis of pneumonia. Thus, change of these parameters may reflect the severity of pulmonary lesions. The pathogenesis of pneumonia in each etiologic agent may be different; in general, patients with typical bacterial pneumonia manifest more toxic clinical symptoms with leukocytosis, neutrophilia with band form neutrophils, and bacteremia. In initial pneumonia lesions, mainly activated neutrophils and mononuclear phagocytes are predominantly observed, and mediators such as proteolytic enzymes, oxygen radicals, and cytokines from these cells may be associated with host lung injury.