Respiratory infections due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae in the adult patient

Abstract

SummaryThe clinical spread of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections is wide, ranging from asymptomatic to severe or complicated broncho-pulmonary disease, and including upper respiratory tract attacks and acute bronchitis. M. pneumoniae pneumonia represents the archetypal acute infectious pneumopathy of the primary atypical type, and many large-scale epidemiological studies attribute it with 20% to 40% of all acute infectious pneumopathy in adults. The clinical and radiological aspects are discussed. Evolution of the infection is benign, as a rule, in subjects without pre-existing defects, but the respiratory repercussions of M. pneumoniae often cause complications or exacerbations in mature or elderly predisposed adults with conditions such as chronic obstructive lung diseases and asthma, and cardiac decompensation episodes. The extra-respiratory sites of M. pneumoniae infection are briefly reviewed, as is treatment in adults with erythromycin and the tetracyclines.