Australian hospitals should avoid prescribing expensive broad-spectrum antibiotics for pneumonia to avoid the development of more drug-resistant super bugs, according to a University of Melbourne study.

In 2006, a pneumococcal vaccine (Prevenar®) was introduced in the childhood vaccination programme in Norway. Two years later, the experiences have been published in the journal Vaccine. The results show a strong decline in serious pneumococcal infections among young children.

Although the childhood pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has been a boon in reducing the incidence invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), the public and the medical community must not get complacent, as non-vaccine strains, some resistant to antibiotics, are on the rise, say scientists at a meeting today in Boston.

Researchers at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas have demonstrated that, contrary to prevailing dogma, hypoxia can be remarkably beneficial to the heart. These discoveries, to be reported in the June 2008 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, may lead to a new paradigm to protect hearts of patients at risk of coronary disease.

Mayo Clinic researchers found that the frequency with which critically-ill patients developed ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is approximately the same at a multidisciplinary medical center such as Mayo Clinic compared to the average VAP-risk rate for 211 hospitals in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

When men present in emergency departments with pneumonia, they are likely to be sicker than women and have a greater risk of dying over the next year, despite the more aggressive medical care they receive, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh that will be presented at the American Thoracic Society’s 2008 International Conference in Toronto on Tuesday, May 20.

Men who come to the hospital with pneumonia generally are sicker than women and have a higher risk of dying over the next year, despite aggressive medical care, according to a study being presented Tuesday, May 20, at the 104th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society. Scientific sessions are scheduled May 16 to 21 in Toronto.

The investigational use of doripenem for the treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) was associated with shorter patient length of stay and reduced hospital resource utilization, according to new data published in the April edition of Clinical Therapeutics.

This month’s WHO Bulletin, led by the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP), focuses on the prevention and control of childhood pneumonia. It highlights research on the many aspects that drive this deadly disease and the progress now being made – progress that is a priority if Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce child mortality is to be achieved.

Engine exhaust fumes are linked to excess deaths from pneumonia across England, suggests research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Elderly patients who use antipsychotic drugs have a 60 percent increased risk of developing pneumonia compared to non-users. This risk is highest in the first week following prescription and decreases gradually thereafter. These findings are published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Pneumonia contracted outside a hospital caused by a staph bacterium, including a "superbug" strain, may be more common in U.S. children than previously thought.