Pneumonia News and Research

Latest Pneumonia News and Research

Antibiotic use common at the end of life

More than one-quarter of hospice patients receive antibiotics in their last week of life, despite the absence of documented infection in most cases, US researchers report.

25 Jan 2013

AACN expands its hospital-based nurse leadership and innovation training program

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) expands its hospital-based nurse leadership and innovation training program to a fourth region with the addition of eight Austin-area hospitals.

25 Jan 2013

Neuromuscular blockade (NMB) reversal

General anesthesia is made up of three components: hypnotic medicines, to induce sleep; analgesics, or medicines to inhibit pain; and NMB agents that induce muscle relaxation. Anesthesiology professionals use NMB to relax a patient’s muscles and prevent involuntary movement that could impact surgery.

24 Jan 2013

Madagascar faces challenges in vaccinating children

"In Madagascar, pneumonia is responsible for 21 percent of deaths among children under five years old -- making it the leading cause of death for this age group," but "[t]he recent introduction of a vaccine to protect against pneumococcal disease, the leading cause of severe childhood pneumonia, is attempting to reduce the thousands of child deaths that occur every year in" the country, IRIN reports.

24 Jan 2013

Indian company plans to make lower-cost injectable polio vaccine

Serum Institute of India Ltd., the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, plans to "slash the price of polio immunization and introduce shots for diarrhea and pneumonia, undercutting Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.," Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

24 Jan 2013

Routine gastric volume monitoring thrown out

Monitoring gastric residual volumes in critically ill patients receiving enteral nutrition does not prevent them from developing ventilator-associated pneumonia, shows a randomized trial.

22 Jan 2013

Current smokers with HIV more likely to get bacterial pneumonia

Bacterial pneumonia is one of the commonest and most serious infections occurring in people infected with HIV. A metanalysis of cohort and case control studies published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine finds that current smokers with HIV were at double the risk of bacterial pneumonia than non-smoking counterparts, but that when people stopped smoking their risk was reduced.

21 Jan 2013

Albumin may prove a predictor for pneumonia outcomes

Researchers say that assessing serum albumin levels within 24 hours of admission could be a good prognostic marker of community-acquired pneumonia.

21 Jan 2013

ECLS system supports flu patients in their recovery from severe respiratory problems

In recent weeks the intensive critical care units at University Health Network's Toronto General Hospital have used Extra Corporeal Lung Support (ECLS) to support five influenza (flu) patients in their recovery from severe respiratory problems.

19 Jan 2013

Rite Aid obtains more than 400,000 additional seasonal flu shots

In response to the nationwide flu epidemic and customer demand, Rite Aid Corporation announced today it has obtained more than 400,000 additional seasonal flu shots, which began arriving in stores earlier this week.

19 Jan 2013

Prevention opportunity for postoperative cardiac arrest

Postoperative complications occur in more than three-quarters of patients who have a cardiac arrest, shows research that suggests an opportunity for intervention.

17 Jan 2013

Pneumonia risk increased in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia are at an increased risk for developing pneumonia, results from a large Taiwanese study show.

17 Jan 2013

Underestimating cough duration may skew antibiotic perceptions

US researchers suggest that one reason patients request antibiotics for respiratory infections is that they greatly underestimate how long it usually takes for acute cough illness to resolve.

17 Jan 2013

Pneumonia risk increased in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia are at an increased risk for developing pneumonia, results from a large Taiwanese study show.

16 Jan 2013

Study demonstrates ways in which quality measurement from EHRs can be improved

Health care providers and hospitals are being offered up to $27 billion in federal financial incentives to use electronic health records (EHRs) in ways that demonstrably improve the quality of care. The incentives are based, in part, on the ability to electronically report clinical quality measures.

16 Jan 2013

Greater selectivity in GI bleeding prophylaxis needed

Researchers have developed a risk-scoring system to identify noncritically ill hospital patients most likely to benefit from prophylactic acid-suppressive medication.

14 Jan 2013

Boston declares flu emergency as aggressive viruses spread across the nation

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the "colds and flu" spectrum.

11 Jan 2013

Taking early and repeated WBC is critical in determining infants at high risk of pertussis

A study released today from the upcoming issue of the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS) found that taking early and repeated white blood cell counts (WBC) is critical in determining whether infants have pertussis and which of those children are at highest risk of death from the disease.

11 Jan 2013

Patients at high-risk for recurrent C. difficile with unnecessary antibiotic use

The impact of antibiotic misuse has far-reaching consequences in healthcare, including reduced efficacy of the drugs, increased prevalence of drug-resistant organisms, and increased risk of deadly infections. A new study featured in the February issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, found that many patients with Clostridium difficile infection (C. difficile) are prescribed unnecessary antibiotics, increasing their risk of recurrence of the deadly infection.

10 Jan 2013

EC approves Pfizer’s Prevenar 13 to prevent pneumococcal disease

Pfizer Inc. announced today that the European Commission has approved expanding the use of the company's pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Prevenar 13(pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine [13-valent, adsorbed]), to older children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years for active immunization for the prevention of invasive disease, pneumonia and acute otitis media caused by vaccine-type Streptococcus pneumoniae.

9 Jan 2013