How does pneumonia cause death?
There several ways that pneumonia may become fatal. Pneumonia is an infection within the lungs. If extensive enough, pneumonia may interfere with proper gas exchange, leading to respiratory distress. If not corrected, this may ultimately lead to hypoxic injury or death. Another way may involve spread of the infection to other organs or blood (sepsis). Sepsis, through several mechanisms, may lead to low blood pressure (hypotension) and tissue injury. The kidneys are often injured during prolonged periods of hypotension. Also, the infection may spread to other organs, possibly in the form of septic emboli. It is possible to the organism to form additional pockets of infection (abscesses) in distant organs. Occasionally, though a patient may recover from the initial pneumonia, he may develop a secondary infection. Since the second infection is often contracted while on antibiotics or in the hospital, the responsible bacteria may be resistant to antibiotics. The potential for antibiotic re
