[Bacterial infections of the lung in the elderly].

Many cases of the lung abscess of the elderly ages are the outcome of aspiration pneumonia attributable to miss-swallowing. These cases basically have the risky conditions of repeated miss-swallowing such as cerebrovascular diseases, regurgitation from stomach to esophagus and so on. Even if the infected lung tissues were resected completely, habitual miss-swallowing can produce the aspiration pneumonia or lung abscess again. Non-surgical therapy is superior for the lung abscess caused by miss-swallowing. The group of the lung abscess due to lung cancer requires the surgery because other treatments can not cure the severe inflammation. This surgery aims primarily the recovery from infected condition of the lung, and sometimes the curative resection is impossible. The prognosis of the group is not always good. The lung abscess often accompanies severe adhesion to the thoracic wall due to inflammation, consequently the surgeons are obliged to stressful surgery with bleeding and a long time.