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Query: UMLS:C0018681 (headache)
 56,091 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Trench fever is caused by Bartonella (Rochalimaea) quintana, a small gram-negative rod that is transmitted by body lice. Recently, B. quintana infections in homeless patients have been reported in the United States and Europe. From October 1993 to October 1994, the seroprevalence of antibodies to B. quintana was assessed by indirect immunofluorescence in a prospective study of 221 nonhospitalized homeless people, 43 hospitalized homeless patients (cases), 250 blood donors, and 57 hospitalized matched controls. Four (1.8%) of 221 nonhospitalized homeless people tested had titers of > 1:100. Of the 43 cases, seven (16%) had serological titers of > or = 1:100. None of the 250 serum samples from blood donors contained antibodies to B. quintana. The presence of antibodies to B. quintana in cases was significantly associated with the presence of body lice, exposure to cats, headaches, eastern European origin, and pain in the legs. This study demonstrates the presence of antibodies to B. quintana in the homeless population and should alert physicians that B. quintana might be an etiologic agent of fever in homeless patients.
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PMID:Survey of the seroprevalence of Bartonella quintana in homeless people. 890 40

Bartonella quintana and Bartonella pediococcus infections are very rare causes of endocarditis. Urban trench fever with relapsing febrile illness, headache, leg pain, and endocarditis has now begun to be a more important cause of disease in socially disadvantaged persons. The diagnosis is difficult because the growth of B. quintana in blood culture takes 20-40 days. B. pediococcus may be an opportunistic pathogen in severely compromised hosts, although it has been described as a harmless bacterium. We describe a patient who developed bioprosthetic valve infection with B. quintana and B. pediococcus after valve replacement.
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PMID:Bartonella quintana and Bartonella pediococcus Infection after Aortic Valve Replacement. 1843 Jun 64

In 1915, a British medical officer on the Western Front reported on a soldier with relapsing fever, headache, dizziness, lumbago, and shin pain. Within months, additional cases were described, mostly in frontline troops, and the new disease was called trench fever. More than 1 million troops were infected with trench fever during World War 1, with each affected soldier unfit for duty for more than 60 days. Diagnosis was challenging, because there were no pathognomonic signs and symptoms and the causative organism could not be cultured. For 3 years, the transmission and cause of trench fever were hotly debated. In 1918, two commissions identified that the disease was louse-borne. The bacterium Rickettsia quintana was consistently found in the gut and faeces of lice that had fed on patients with trench fever and its causative role was accepted in the 1920s. The organism was cultured in the 1960s and reclassified as Bartonella quintana; it was also found to cause endocarditis, peliosis hepatis, and bacillary angiomatosis. Subsequently, B quintana infection has been identified in new populations in the Andes, in homeless people in urban areas, and in individuals with HIV. The story of trench fever shows how war can lead to the recrudescence of an infectious disease and how medicine approached an emerging infection a century ago.
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PMID:The centenary of the discovery of trench fever, an emerging infectious disease of World War 1. 2737 11