RESUMO
Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is the commonest infectious disease characterized by the high lethality rate. The aim of this work was to estimate the efficacy of introducing inhalation of heated oxygen-helium mixture (thermoheliox) into standard therapy of CAP. The study included 50 patients with moderately severe CAP 25 patients of group 1 were given standard therapy plus thermoheliox, those of group 2 were treated by standard method. Group 1 showed faster disappearance of symptoms and physical signs including inflammatory changes (chemiluminescence of whole blood) and cardiac rhythm variability as well as more complete recovery of pneumonia upon X-ray examination. It is concluded that thermoheliox is an effective agent for pathogenetic therapy of community-acquired pneumonia.
