lung and airway disorders
Hospital Acquired Pneumonia
Diagnosis of Hospital Acquired Pneumonia
A chest x-ray or chest computed tomography (CT) scan Sometimes blood cultures Sometimes bronchoscopy or thoracentesis The diagnosis of hospital-acquired pneumonia is based on a person’s symptoms and the results of a chest x-ray or a chest CT scan. Doctors usually take a sample of blood so they can try to grow (culture) the bacteria in the laboratory and identify it. People who have hospital-acquired pneumonia may be very sick, so doctors may need to identify the organism that is causing pneumonia to determine the best treatment. For these reasons, sometimes doctors do Bronchoscopy to obtain specimens from within the lung itself to try to identify the organism. During bronchoscopy, a flexible viewing tube is inserted into the trachea and lungs. Samples of pus, secretions, or even lung tissue can be collected for examination. If no secretions are visible, an area of the lung can be washed with fluid, which can then be retrieved for analysis (a procedure called 