KARACHI: Pneumonia-induced complications attributed to poor diagnosis
KARACHI, July 15: It is often lack of proper understanding on part of general physicians coupled with inappropriate compliance to drug therapy among patients
, that pneumonia induced complications as empyema and lung abscess besides others can be witnessed among patients.
Prof Nadeem Rizvi, head of Chest Medicine Department, JPMC talking to the APP on Thursday said that patients arriving at the tertiary care hospital are mainly those who develop severe, and largely avoidable complications of the disease, which are not only extremely painful but also take time to be treated.
The medical professional reminded that each and every doctor needed to ensure thorough chest examination of people reporting to them with cough, cold or fever. According to him, only X-ray could establish whether it was pneumonia or not, and help in prescribing the required course of antibiotics on the basis of evidence.
Ironically, what was being noticed was that doctors often failed to understand the actual nature of the problem, and ask patients to continue with the prescribed medication for four to five days, he said, mentioning that patients too, generally belonging to the lower income group, finding themselves to have got rid of fever in a day of two, prefer not to continue with the drug, which generally happen to be antibiotics.
Dr Rizvi in this regard also cited the high cost of medicines, itself a factor, inciting a patient with resource constraints to discontinue with the therapy. Ultimately, this leads to recurrence of the ailment in little time, besides increased resistance of the bacteria.
Elaborating this, the chest physician said that as the antibiotic course was left deficient, the bacteria causing pneumonia was not eradicated for good and it continued to persist and re-occur within a short span of time, often with a higher degree of vengeance.
Consequently, the patient was exposed to conditions as Empyema, (which could be described as puss in the lining of the lung), the condition was often extremely painful and a patient may take between one to two months period for complete recovery.
Whereas, the economic aspect appears when a patient may be a daily wage earner or the sole bread winner for his family, he said. Responding to a query, he said the disease itself and consequent conditions were commonly witnessed among men, reasons being their indulgence in smoking or occupational exposure to smoke.
Of cigarette smokers, it was said that if the habit continued for several years, there could be possibility of getting inflicted with lung cancer. The senior physician also mentioned of "TB Pneumonia" saying that TB presented almost similar symptoms as Pneumonia, and inadequate investigation followed by inappropriate treatment could lead concerned patients towards the mentioned condition.
It was reminded that TB was generally a disease of the poor linked with poverty. Prof Nadeem reiterated the need for realising that suspicion aroused during chest examination must not be ignored, and should be followed with blood culture and sputum tests.
With regard to some of the more dreadful complications of pneumonia, he mentioned of the Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which was a form of severe pneumonia caused due to delayed treatment. While, organ failure and severe blood infection were also cited to be some of the other pneumonia induced complications. - APP
