September 12, 2016

expert comments about pneumonia, following reports that Hillary Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia

The US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has reportedly been diagnosed with pneumonia, a condition which affects the lungs.

Prof. Jeremy Brown, Centre for Inflammation and Tissue Repair, UCL Respiratory, said:

“Pneumonia it is very common, especially after 65 years of age.  It varies from being mild, which can be treated outside of hospital with antibiotics, to more severe, which needs admitting to hospital. Clinton seems to have the mild version otherwise she would not be able to attend the public engagements at all.

“There is often no underlying reason why somebody develops pneumonia, and recovery is usually fast and complete within a few days. However some patients do feel they are more tired than usual for a few weeks after.”

Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, Reader in Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College, London and Honorary Medical Advisor to The British Lung Foundation, said:

“Anybody can get pneumonia, although it is more common in certain groups including children, older people and smokers. Pneumonia ranges from mild to life-threatening, but most people who get it will respond well to antibiotics and will get better fairly quickly and should be able to get on with their normal activities soon after treatment.

“Symptoms can include a cough, breathlessness and fever. Doctors will likely carry out an x-ray and assessment of severity. This is to make sure that severe disease that needs to be treated in hospital is recognised and treated promptly, to prevent complications. Most cases respond well to antibiotics and usually have no long-term consequences.”

Prof. Mark Fielder, Professor of Medical Microbiology, Kingston University, and Vice President of the Society for Applied Microbiology, said:

“The reports of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton potentially presenting with walking pneumonia are of no great surprise in that the infection is not uncommon in older people.

“The disease – also known as community acquired pneumonia – often shows signs such as persistent fever, dry cough and malaise. There are a number of organisms that can cause these symptoms but the most common is likely to be a mollicute bacteria known as Mycoplasma pneumoniae. These are interesting microorganisms that possess a very small genome and do not actually possess a cell wall, just a cell membrane. These pathogens therefore do not respond to commonly used antibiotics that attack the bacterial cell wall such as the beta lactam antibiotics for example penicillin, ampicillin or augmentin.

“Effective treatment for these organisms needs to target processes inside the cell such as DNA metabolism. Therefore drugs such as tetracycline, erythromycin or clindamycin are likely to be more effective.

“Often people recover with no treatment, but where treatment is required patients normally recover quite quickly.”

Declared interests

Prof. Jeremy Brown: “I have some grants investigating pneumonia including a research agreement with pharmaceutical company and some consultancies but nothing that I think is a true conflict of interest.”

Dr Nicholas Hopkinson declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

Prof. Mark Fielder: “Apart from being the SfAM Vice President I have nothing to declare.”