Pulmonary hemorrhage (or pulmonary haemorrhage) is an acute bleeding from the lung, from the upper respiratory tract and the trachea, and the pulmonary alveoli. When evident clinically, the condition is usually massive. The onset of pulmonary hemorrhage is characterized by a cough productive of blood (hemoptysis) and worsening of oxygenation leading to cyanosis. Diagnosis of DAH is often given following observation of a patient presenting with hemoptysis, anemia, and cough, along with a chest X-ray showing alveolar infiltrates in the lungs, which are areas of air space in the lungs that are opacified and of higher density that normal, usually indicating that they are filled with a substance such as pus, blood, or another fluid.
Incidence
The outcome of treatment is dependent on causality. Pulmonary Hemorrhage is present in 7 to 10% of neonatal autopsies, but up to 80% of autopsies of very preterm infants.