What Is Bronchitis?
6. Complications and Considerations
About 10% of patients with acute bronchitis may experience complications. Those with repeated episodes of acute bronchitis may develop chronic bronchitis. Other complications include bacterial superinfection, reactive airway disease, pneumonia, and hemoptysis. It is important to consider the possibility of group A streptococci (GAS) co-infection.
This is especially important as GAS infection can lead to issues such as acute rheumatic fever and poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis. Before arriving at the final diagnosis of bronchitis, some problems to exclude are bacterial tracheitis, cystic fibrosis, exercise-induced asthma, tonsillitis, influenza, occupational exposure, retained foreign body, and gastroesophageal reflux disease.
Advertisement
