Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

It is extremely important to look for tropical and other exotic diseases in travellers who return with illness or become ill after travelling. Especially tropical diseases and exotic infectious diseases have to be excluded because of their possible fatal outcome. On the other hand, many travellers return with 'common' not-exotic illnesses not related to their journey. When in such cases attention is only given to exotic causes of their illness, diagnosis can be delayed which may be harmful. This was the case in 5 patients: a woman aged 44 years who suffered for months from bloody diarrhoea since her return from Brasil, due to a rectal adenocarcinoma, a 61-year-old man with diarrhoea upon returning from Egypt, who had hairy-cell leukaemia, a 17-year-old boy who developed a ketoacidotic diabetic crisis whilst on a journey in Uganda, but in whose case the first thoughts went to malaria, a 50-year-old man who suffered from throat pain since a journey through East Africa, during which he contracted a flu-like disease, and in whom Kahler's disease was diagnosed, and 69-year-old man suffering from recurrent fever and cough, in whom a radiological lesion was observed in the thorax which proved to be part of Wegener's disease.
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PMID:[Illness after travel not always due to exotic disease]. 1123 88

Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) is often used in the laboratory to confirm paucicellular vasculitis like Wegener's granulomatosis, Churg Strauss syndrome or polyarteritis nodosa in the presence of suggestive clinical features. In tropical countries, tuberculosis, leprosy and, occasionally, malaria can produce clinical features similar to a vasculitic illness and all the three infections are known to be associated with auto antibodies. We tested 318 patients suffering from malaria, tuberculosis or leprosy for ANCA positivity. ANCA positivity was found in 19%, 32% and 30% of malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy patients (Pradhan V, Badakere S, Shankarkumar V, Iyer Y, Ghosh K, Karnad D, Indian J Malariol, 39:51-59, 2002; Pradhan V, Badakere S, Ghosh K, Pawar A, Indian J Med Sci, 58:283-288, 2004a; Pradhan V, Badakere S, Shankarkumar V, Lepr Rev, 75:50-56, 2004b), respectively, raising the possibility that ANCA positivity with clinical features suggestive of vasculitis in tropical countries may even be related to the background noise of this seropositivity caused by one of these three infections rather than confirming the diagnosis of paucicellular vasculitis. Hence, one should be careful about the background noise of ANCA positivity caused by these infections while diagnosing a vasculitic illness.
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PMID:Background noise of infection for using ANCA as a diagnostic tool for vasculitis in tropical and developing countries. 1829 72