[Peculiarities of inflammatory intoxication syndrome in elderly patients with extrahospital pneumonia].

The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical and diagnostical features of extrahospital pneumonia (EHP) in elderly patients to optimize their complex medical providence under the conditions of a pulmonological department. In particular, the authors studied the manifestations of endogenous inflammatory intoxication syndrome (EIIS). The subjects, 142 elderly patients (more than 60 years of age) with EHP, and the controls, 125 patients under 40, were treated in the Pulmonology Department, Burdenko Military Hospital, in 2002-2004. The results of the study show that EIIS does not play the leading part in the clinical picture in elderly EHP patients; its manifestations are often not as prominent as those in the young and thus they can only serve as an approximate indicator for complex clinicoradiological examination, undertaken in order to reveal and determine the severity of this dangerous disease.