THE PURPOSE of this paper is to report the case of a patient with chronic bronchiectasis in which Pseudomonas aeruginosa was cultured repeatedly from the respiratory tract and in whom the use of an acetic acid aerosol produced marked clinical improvement after antibiotic therapy had failed.
Olsen1 describes aerosols as mists of medicated solutions, and when such mists are inhaled by a patient the therapy is called aerosol therapy. He also states that if aerosol therapy has merit it is because of the topical effect exerted by the inhaled preparations on the bronchial mucosa and the mixing of the preparation with purulent bronchopulmonary secretions. The commonly encountered Gram-positive organisms to be found in bronchiectatic secretions are pneumococci, hemolytic and nonhemolytic streptococci and staphylococci. The common Gram-negative bacteria include Escherichia coli, Hemophilus influenzae, Aerobacter aerogenes, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. On many occasions Gram-negative bacteria are not isolated from sputum cultures until