Acute lower respiratory tract infection in primary care: improving prognosis by considering the interplay between the lung and the heart

Acute lower respiratory infections: is there more between the lung and heart? Lower respiratory infections (LRTI), such as pneumonia, are common in adults. Some patients with LRTI require hospitalization. Observations from practice show that this mainly occurs in patients with underlying cardiovascular disease (CVD). The GP does not take this much into account, because the interplay between heart and lung is not yet sufficiently clear. We want to increase knowledge about this interplay by investigating: what are the predictors for the development of additional CVD or worsening of known CVD how additional CVD adversely affects the course of an LRTI whether blood tests of immune response say something about how an LRTI progresses with COVID-19 and without COVID-19, both in the short and long term With this research, the treatment of LRTI can be greatly improved and unknown heart disease can be detected at an early stage.