Upper and lower respiratory tract infection

Respiratory tract infection, whether acquired in the community or in the hospital, continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality when its course requires intensive care support [1–4]. Infections of the respiratory tract may involve either the upper central airways (trachea, major bronchi), commonly termed tracheobronchitis, or the more distal respiratory tract commonly termed “pneumonia”. Pneumonia is defined by the presence of parenchymal inflammation due to overwhelming invasion of the normally sterile lower airways by one or more respiratory pathogens. It is important to categorize pneumonia based on where the infecting organisms were acquired. Community-acquired pneumonia represents only lower respiratory tract infection which was contracted outside the hospital setting, or was incubating at the time of hospitalization. Nosocomial pneumonia is defined as the onset of compatible clinical signs and symptoms with radiographic findings after a minimum of 48 hours of hospitalization, either in an ICU environment or in the general wards. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.