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Health Topics A-Z

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Pneumonia

Overview Symptoms Treatment Prevention

Alternative Names:

Pneumonitis; Bronchopneumonia; Community-acquired pneumonia

Symptoms:

The main symptoms of pneumonia are:

Cough with greenish or yellow mucus; bloody sputum happens on occasion
Fever with shaking chills
Sharp or stabbing chest pain worsened by deep breathing or coughing
Rapid, shallow breathing
Shortness of breath

Additional symptoms include:

Headache
Excessive sweating and clammy skin
Loss of appetite
Excessive fatigue
Confusion in older people

Signs and tests:

If you have pneumonia, you may be working hard to breathe, or may be breathing fast. Crackles are heard when listening to your chest with a stethoscope. Other abnormal breathing sounds may also be heard through the stethoscope or via percussion (tapping on your chest wall).

The following tests may show signs of pneumonia:

Chest x-ray
Gram's stain and culture of your sputum to look for the organism causing your symptoms
CBC to check white blood cell count; if high, this suggests bacterial infection
Arterial blood gases to check how well you are oxygenating your blood
Thoracic CT
Pulmonary ventilation/perfusion scan
Pleural fluid culture if there is fluid in the space surrounding the lungs

Pneumococci organism	Lungs	Pneumonia	White nail syndrome
Pneumococcal pneumonia	Respiratory system

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