title: Lung abscess: a changing pattern of the disease.
abstract: Alcoholic stupor with aspiration has been the most commonly recognized cause of lung abscess. Eighty-nine patients treated for lung abscess in a large community hospital from 1968 through 1982 have been described. Forty-six percent of these patients were 60 to 80 years of age. The most common predisposing factors included pneumonia, immunosuppression steroid therapy, carcinoma at a distant site, alcoholism, and lung cancer. Surgical therapy was employed in 23 patients when there was suspicion of cancer and failure to improve with medical management. Fifty-seven percent of patients were either cured or improved at the time of discharge. Twenty-nine percent died from other causes during hospitalization, and 9 percent died as a direct result of the abscess. Thus, the patients encountered in the community hospital setting tended to be older and had a wide variety of illnesses that precipitated the development of lung abscesses.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007153:Immunologic Deficiency Syndromes / Q000150:complications; D008169:Lung Abscess / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000150:complications; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011015:Pneumonia, Aspiration / Q000150:complications
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents