Aspiration Pneumonia

Aspiration pneumonia is a lung infection caused by a relatively large amount of material from the stomach or mouth entering the lungs, producing fever and a cough of relatively rapid onset. Risk factors include decreased consciousness, difficulty swallowing, alcoholism, feeding by tube, and poor oral hygiene, and the infection can involve a range of bacterial species; some cases instead involve chemical inflammation of the lungs from stomach acid rather than infection, and in these cases antibiotics are not needed. It can lead to complications including lung abscess, acute respiratory distress syndrome, empyema, and fluid buildup around the lung. Diagnosis relies on clinical history and symptoms together with chest X-ray imaging and sputum culture, and treatment for true infection is with antibiotics such as clindamycin, meropenem, ampicillin-sulbactam, or moxifloxacin. It accounts for about ten percent of hospitalized pneumonia cases and occurs more often in elderly people, particularly nursing home residents, affecting men and women about equally.