Pneumonia due to Adenovirus

**Definition:** A disease of the pulmonary system, caused by an infection with adenovirus. This disease is characterised by fever, chills, or rigors. This disease may also present with chest pain, productive cough, dyspnoea, tachypnoea, hypoxia, and tachycardia. Transmission is by droplet transmission. Confirmation is by identification of adenovirus in a sputum sample.

**Long definition:** Adenoviral is most frequently associated with upper respiratory tract syndromes, but can also cause pneumonia. Most adenovirus infections are self-limiting, although fatal infections can occur in immunocompromised hosts, neonates, and, occasionally, healthy children and adults. In children, adenoviruses cause approximately 10% of pneumonias.[1] The clinical characteristics of adenovirus pneumonia are similar to those of other pneumonias. In fatal cases there has been extensive pulmonary damage, with death occurring 2 to 3 weeks into the illness. Intravascular coagulopathy has also been a late feature of some cases, and a septic-shock picture has been described. Adenoviruses cause a particularly aggressive form of pneumonia in neonates, characterized by necrotizing bronchiolitis and alveolitis.[2]