22689              STAPHYLOCOCCAL BRONCHOPNEUMONIA

This patient was a man aged 60 who suffered a ruptured splenic flexure for which a transverse colostomy was performed.  A week later a large perforating gastric ulcer was resected.  Tracheostomy was necessary and thereafter he developed signs of pneumonia.  Haemolytic staphylococci were grown from the sputum and the blood.

The specimen is of the right lung sectioned to show scattered patches of septic bronchopneumonia most evident in the apical segment of the lower lobe.  Some of these patches have broken down to form small acute abscesses.  There is a mass of antemortem thrombus in the main pulmonary artery extending into the arteries in the affected lobe.  On the reverse of the specimen some diffuse consolidation is evident in the substance of the upper lobe and acute abscesses are prominent in the breaking-down suppurating tissue.