Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0017536 (giardiasis)
 1,714 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

To study the etiology of chronic childhood diarrhea among Nigerian children, 142 patients, aged 6 months to 5 years, with diarrhea for at least 1 month, were evaluated; the study took place during January-December 1983 at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Northern Nigeria. Enteropathogenic agents were identified in stools of 90 (63%) patients. Giardia lamblia and Entamoeba histolytica were most commonly detected, representing 41% and 23%, respectively, of all parasitic pathogens. In children with negative stool microscopy, chronic diarrhea was associated with primary lactose intolerance (2 cases), abdominal tuberculosis (2 cases), hyponatremia, low serum albumin, anemia due to sickle cell disease, or Staphylococcus aureus infection. In contrast with chronic diarrhea etiologies reported among children in Europe and North America, infections were the major cause of chronic childhood diarrhea among these children. In general, it is accepted that intestinal infection usually produces acute diarrhea--and that, if the host fails to mount a competent immune response, if there is repeated exposure to infectious agents, or if severe infection damages a substantial proportion of absorptive cells, then severe, protracted diarrhea may result. The high case fatality rate of 9% in this series was associated with specific infectious complications of septicemia, bronchopneumonia, lobar pneumonia and measles. Severe malnutrition also worsened the prognosis in chronic diarrhea. The results indicate that early detection and treatment of amebiasis and giardiasis is a useful approach in the treatment of chronic diarrhea cases among children.
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PMID:Chronic diarrhoea in Nigerian children. 383 11

More than 340 parasitic species infect more than 3 billion people worldwide with varying morbidity and mortality. The Tropics constitute the main reservoir of infection with the highest clinical impact, owing to favorable ecological factors. Acquisition of infection, clinical severity, and outcome of a parasitic disease depend on innate and acquired host immunity as well as the parasite's own immune response against the host when infection is established. Organ transplant recipients may acquire significant parasitic disease in 3 ways: transmission with the graft, de novo infection, or activation of dormant infection as a consequence of immunosuppression. Malaria, Trypanosoma, Toxoplasma, and Leishmania are the principal parasites that may be transmitted with bone marrow, kidney, or liver homografts, and microsporidia with xenotransplants. De novo infection with malaria and kala-azar may occur in immunocompromised travelers visiting in endemic areas, while immunocompromised natives are subject to superinfection with different strains of endemic parasites, reinfection with schistosomiasis, or rarely, with primary infections such as acanthamoeba. The list of parasites that may be reactivated in the immunocompromised host includes giardiasis, balantidiasis, strongyloidiasis, capillariasis, malaria, Chagas' disease, and kalaazar. The broad clinical syndromes of parasitic infection in transplant recipients include prolonged pyrexia, lower gastrointestinal symptoms, bronchopneumonia, and meningoencephalitis. Specific syndromes include the hematologic manifestations of malaria, myocarditis in Chagas' disease, acute renal failure in malaria and leishmaniasis, and the typical skin lesions of Chagas' and cutaneous leishmaniasis. Many antiparasitic drugs have the potential for gastrointestinal, hepatic, renal, and hematologic toxicity, and may interact with the metabolism of immunosuppressive agents. It is recommended that transplant clinicians have a high index of suspicion of parasitic infections as an important transmission threat, as well as a potential cause of significant posttransplant morbidity.
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PMID:Parasitic infections in organ transplantation. 1585 39