A popular stomach-acid reducer used to prevent stress ulcers in critically ill patients needing breathing machine support increases the risk of those patients contracting pneumonia threefold, according to researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

One of the major challenges in modern vaccinology is to engineer vectors that are highly infectious, yet don't cause illness. Trickier still is to ensure that such weapons against infectious disease can be safely disarmed, once their immunogenic work is done.

A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows that Statins, which are used to lower cholesterol, can also reduce the risk of dying from pneumonia infection.

Discovery of a new, previously unknown mechanism of immunity suggests that there may be a better way to protect vulnerable children and adults against Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcal) infection, say researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).

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.

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

Since the approval of a vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria for young children in 2000, rates of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) are down significantly in all age groups, while rates of IPD caused by non-vaccine strains are modestly on the rise. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report their results today (March 18) at the 2008 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have identified a key protein target that may be a crucial factor in the development of a vaccine to prevent and new therapies to treat pneumonia, the leading killer of children worldwide.

When elderly nursing home residents contract pneumonia, it is a blow to their already fragile health. Simin Nikbin Meydani, DVM, PhD of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and colleagues report that maintaining normal serum zinc concentration in the blood may help reduce the risk of pneumonia development in that population.

A strain of the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae, which can cause ear infections in children, has been detected that is resistant to all FDA-approved antibiotics for treatment of ear infections and is not covered by the pneumococcal 7-valent conjugate vaccine, according to a study in the October 17 issue of JAMA.