Do you know the symptoms of lung abscess?

When the lungs are infected by bacteria, they become inflamed and festered, which is what we often call lung abscess. This disease has many symptoms, such as high fever, cough with large amounts of smelly sputum, lack of energy, fatigue, and poor appetite.

The lungs, like other organs in the body, can become infected by bacteria and become inflamed and fester. The lungs are an important organ in the human body that is connected to the outside world. Although they are well protected, they are sometimes still inevitably infected. Lung abscess is pus formation in the lungs, forming cavities and pus bags. At the beginning, there may only be bacterial infection and inflammation in the lungs, and the patient will have a high fever and cough; then the center of the lesion begins to necrotize. When the necrotic tissue ruptures and enters the bronchus, a cavity will be formed. At this time, the patient will cough up a lot of purulent and smelly sputum, and the body temperature will drop accordingly. Most acute lung abscesses can be cured through drug treatment, but if the treatment is not timely and thorough, it may turn into a chronic lung abscess, which will require surgical treatment.

Lung abscess is common in young and middle-aged people, more common in males than in females. Acute aspiration lung abscess has an acute onset (there may be aspiration before the onset of the disease). Patients have chills and fever, with body temperature as high as 39-40 degrees; accompanied by cough, coughing up mucus or mucopurulent sputum; inflammation spreading to the local pleura can cause chest pain; when the lesion area is large, shortness of breath may occur; in addition, there may also be lack of energy, fatigue, and poor appetite. About 7-10 days later, the cough intensifies, the abscess ruptures into the bronchi, and a large amount of purulent and smelly sputum is coughed up, reaching 300-500 ml per day. At this time, the body temperature will drop. Since most pathogens are anaerobic bacteria, the sputum has a fishy smell. Sometimes there is blood in the sputum, and even coughing up blood.

Hematogenous lung abscess often first presents with systemic sepsis symptoms such as chills and high fever caused by the primary lesion (outside the lungs), and lung symptoms such as cough and sputum appear after several days to two weeks. Usually there is not much sputum and hemoptysis is rare.

Patients with chronic lung abscess have symptoms such as chronic cough, coughing up purulent sputum, repeated hemoptysis, secondary infection and irregular fever, and often have chronic wasting conditions such as anemia and weight loss.