The role of hormonal changes in adaptation disorders of young systems in the course of community-acquired pneumonia

Abstract

Community-acquired pneumoniae are considered as life-threatening infectious diseases and are one of the main causes of morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality. The main goal is to study and assess the role of the hormone imbalance in the adaptation disorders of young organism during the community-acquired pneumonia. To achieve the goals of the research 296 male patients with pneumonia, aged 18-21, were examined. The control group consisted of 63 practically healthy male individuals of the same age. Besides standard examinations, the levels of cortisol, testosterone, prolactin, thyroid stimulating hormone, triiodothyronine, thyroxine, antithyroglobulin and anti-thyroid-peroxidase were determined in the blood serum. The analysis shows that the level of prolactin in all research groups tends to increase; the level of testosterone in all the groups tends to decrease; the level of cortisol in the 18-19 age group tends to decrease; in the 20-21 age group this indicator increases, but it remains below the level of the indicator of the control group. The impact of unfavorable factors of military service, the neuropsychological and physical overstrain, the change in the diet and rations, army-specific conditions, and the unusual situation for some individuals lead to an overstrain and exhaustion of the protective adaptation reactions of the organism, manifested also by hormonal shifts. In the conditions of community-acquired pneumonia, the adaptation process of the organism was accompanied by a similar phasal endocrine shifts, manifested by marginal hyperprolactinemia, a decline in testosterone levels, with no increase in the levels of cortisol detected, regardless of the fact that community-acquired pneumonia was a stress factor for the organism. The main pathogen of the community-acquired pneumonia among the military was mycoplasma pneumoniae and chlamydophila pneumoniae. The course of the pneumonia cases was clinically atypical and rapid, swiftly complicating with hemorrhagic alveolitis. In some cases, the clinical course of the illness lagged behind the findings by X-ray imaging examination results.