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The study enrolled 53 patients (29 males, 24 females) with respiratory mycoplasmosis aged 15-88 years. Most of them were 59 years of age and younger. In 1/3 of the patients the diseases started with symptoms of acute respiratory viral infection, in 2/3 of them--with pulmonary affection. Pneumonia was diagnosed in 50 patients (94.3%), acute bronchitis--in 3 patients. ECG changes were registered in about half of the examinees who had no cardiac complaints. 25 of them had alterations in the end part of the ventricular ECG complex; rhythm and conduction disturbances occurred rarely. Mycoplasmosis patients suffering from ischemic heart disease (IHD) had stable ECG changes while in those free of IHD the changes were short. Myocardial necrosis foci were absent. Cardiac damage comparison in patients with respiratory mycoplasmosis and in other acute respiratory infections has found that cardiovascular system suffers less in acute mycoplasmosis. These data are useful in differential diagnosis of myocardial infections.

A serological study of blood from 44 patients with acutely progressive forms of pulmonary tuberculosis revealed their rather common association with active forms of the following opportunistic infections, such as M. pneumonia, Pn. carinii, and herpes simplex virus.

The results of several years study of the acute respiratory infections (ARI) (pneumonias) are summarized. Their high frequency in dying children is found (72% of autopsy cases in all Leningrad pediatric hospitals). Their etiology is usually complex: viral ARI were in 62.9%, bacterial--56.1%, mycoplasma--8.9%. Structural changes are described in some poorly known ARI (herpetic, cytomegalic, pneumocystic). The distribution of various ARI between hospitals and the etiology of children pneumonia in cases of the death at home (381 cases) or in hospitals (447 cases) are analysed when the autopsy was performed in the same pathology department with detail laboratory investigation. Pneumonias in these groups differed in the etiology and manifestations, first because of bacterial infections. In 114 children the incidence and manifestations of DIC syndrome were studied and this syndrome was shown to have a considerable importance in thanatogenesis particularly during first days of the disease and when the generalization of infections occurs.

Investigations of experimental influenza in white mice using morphological, immunofluorescent, virological, and bacteriological methods showed that proliferation of alveolocytes in respiratory parts of the lungs as well as that of bronchial epithelium described in some papers as characteristic of the "metainfluenza" stage of influenza represent actually a spontaneous pathology of mice caused by mycoplasma. This disease is aggravated by influenza infection.

A total of 126 adult patients with acute bronchitis were subjected to microbiological, virological and immunological examination. Influenza and other acute respiratory viral infections were detected in 104 (82.5%) cases of acute bronchitis. The results of microbiological examination and the study of local and systemic immunity showed that in 94.4 +/- 2.6% of the patients the development of acute bronchitis was linked with the appearance of acute pneumococcal infection irrespective of the presence, or absence, of virologically and serologically confirmed acute viral or mycoplasmal infections.

The authors studied morphological alterations in the lungs of Syrian hamsters infected intranasally with Mycoplasma pneumoniae and influenza virus. The animals were first infected with M. pneumoniae and after 7 days with influenza A/PR8 virus. On days 1-3 after infection with influenza virus (days 8-11 following infection with M. pneumoniae) the animals showed the appearance of multiple foci of bronchiolar epithelium proliferation. At the later stages of experiment the size of the foci of proliferation increased. On days 14-21 after infection with influenza virus (days 21-28 of experiment) the animals developed lung tumors.