Can any of you medical-types fill me in to what bibasilar means? Google just gives a whole bunch of pages that use it, but none that actually say what it means.
Is it worse than plain old pneumonia, or is it just the medical name for pneumonia?
Thanks.
Bibasilar pneumonia means the pneumonia is located in the bases, or lowest portions of both lungs, as opposed to lobar pneumonia, where an entire lobe of lung is socked in, or any pneumonia in another location. It can be associated with aspiration of stomach contents, which makes for a very nasty situation, but really it depends more on what caused the infection to begin with.
Basically it’s a description of where in the lungs the pneumonia is, and connotes something which might be more serious than average.
qtm