This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Pneumonia in adults

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Pneumonia is a term which describes inflammation of the lung parenchyma characterised by exudation and consolidation into the alveoli.

There are various ways of categorising the pneumonias:

  • by who gets them and when
  • by the causative organism
  • by the geography of acquisition

Overall (in the UK), Streptococcus pneumoniae is by far the most common agent.

Every year between 0.5% and 1% of adults in the UK will have community-acquired pneumonia

  • diagnosed in 5-12% of adults who present to GPs with symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection, and 22-42% of these are admitted to hospital, where the mortality rate is between 5% and 14%
  • between 1.2% and 10% of adults admitted to hospital with community-acquired pneumonia are managed in an intensive care unit, and for these patients the risk of dying is more than 30%
  • more than half of pneumonia-related deaths occur in people older than 84 years

Reference:


Related pages

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.