What is it?
Pneumonia is an acute inflammation of the lung, caused by infectious agents, but can also be caused by physical or chemical agents or inhaled or aspiration of gastric contents when the level of awareness is low or there is any disorder of swallowing.
We distinguish three categories:
- Community-acquired pneumonia or community acquired: Occurs in people who have not been admitted to any institution.
- Hospital-acquired pneumonia or nosocomial acquired during the hospital stay, even so called, those that occur within 10 days after hospital discharge.
- Pneumonia in the immunocompromised host: We refer to them in those who show any degree of impairment of the immune system to facilitate the development of infection (diabetics, patients with cancer, chemotherapy, or liver cirrhosis patients infected with the AIDS virus ).
