At an isolated weather station in the central United States, a technician emerges from a small brick shed grasping a balloon. It's not just any birthday party balloon, mind you, but a massive, white sphere more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) in diameter.
Lung abscess can also be caused by the spread of other infections from the liver, abdominal cavity, or open chest wounds. Rarely, AIDS patients can develop lung abscess from Pneumocystis carinii and other organisms that take advantage of a weakened immune system. Lung abscess is usually slow to develop.
With the now commonplace use of low tidal volumes one would expect more micro-atelectasis and it seems reasonable that higher PEEP might be needed to mitigate that tendency. Archive 2008-02-01 Obstructive foreign bodies cause atelectasis, drowned lung, and eventually pulmonary abscess.