Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0032285 (pneumonia)
 54,520 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Disseminated varicella infection is a potentially life-threatening complication of chronic high-dose corticosteroid (CS) or immunosuppressive therapy. A review of the literature indicates that, with one possible exception, this complication has not occurred in a CS-dependent subject with asthma. We present in this article the clinical features and autopsy findings of a steroid-dependent subject with asthma who died of acute, disseminated varicella. A 16-year-old poorly compliant, steroid-dependent subject with asthma received two courses of high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone during a 3-week period, followed by a tapering schedule of oral prednisone. During this time, she was exposed to chickenpox. She subsequently developed a classic varicella rash, sever back pain, rapidly progressive hepatic failure, pneumonitis, and encephalopathy. Death ensued 3 days after the onset of the rash. Evidence of disseminated varicella infection was confirmed at autopsy. This case illustrates that a small number of subjects with severe asthma receiving high-dose CS need to be considered as a separate, high-risk group for developing disseminated varicella. We recommend that the immune status of these patients to varicella-zoster virus be assessed by a serum titer. If these patients are nonimmune, they would be candidates for varicella-zoster immune globulin on exposure, and for acyclovir therapy should varicella dissemination occur.
 ...
PMID:Fatal varicella in steroid-dependent asthma. 333 90

We report the neurological findings in two children with AIDS and one child with lesser AIDS. The first patient developed acute encephalopathy 37 months after having received a blood transfusion from a HTLV-III positive donor. CCT showed ring-enhancement and hypodense lesions with homogenous enhancement. Autopsy revealed CNS toxoplasmosis. The second child with AIDS, born to an iv drug-addicted mother, had one seizure at four months of age, but other neurologic signs were absent. She died of pneumonia due to Pneumocystis carinii at seven months of age. Postmortem examination of the brain revealed extensive nerve cell damage in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum, probably due to terminal hypoxemia and not AIDS-related. In both children clinical features of childhood AIDS like failure to thrive, lymphadenopathy, oral thrush and chronic pulmonary infiltrates were absent. The hallmark of the third child's clinical course was a progressive loss of psychomotor abilities with onset of the neurological symptoms nine months before other signs of AIDS occurred. AIDS should be suspected or excluded in children at increased risk for AIDS presenting with either acquired atypical CNS infection or unexplained developmental regression, even in the absence of other clinical symptoms of pediatric AIDS.
 ...
PMID:Neurological manifestations in three German children with AIDS. 347 44

In the nursery of an Austrian hospital, five newborns accidentally received 10% natrium chloride solution by infusion or oral feeding. Because of wrong labelling by the hospital pharmacy the solution was taken for 10% glucose. In all five newborns, bradycardia, edemas, cyanosis and cramps occurred. In all cases, autopsy revealed a fatal haemorrhagic encephalopathy and more or less extended haemorrhages of the lungs, the kidneys and the liver. There was no suppurative pneumonia and no arteritis. The intracerebral bleedings, thromboses and necroses may be provoked by tissue shrinking caused by hypernatraemic dehydration. The cerebral lesions again cause hyperosmolarity leading to death in most cases. Peritoneal dialysis which may be life-saving in some cases, unfortunately has not been performed in the present cases.
 ...
PMID:[Accidental saline poisoning in newborn infants. Morphologic findings and pathogenetic discussion]. 365 35

To add information about sporadic Legionnaires' disease, 87 cases of L. pneumophila pneumonia were reviewed. Twenty cases were nosocomial infections and 67 cases were community-acquired. Most cases (64%) occurred between July and October. The mean age of patients was 51.4 years and males outnumbered females 2.5:1.0. Thirty-one percent of patients were receiving corticosteroid, immunosuppressive, or antineoplastic chemotherapy when illness began. Immunosuppression at onset of illness was more common in nosocomial infections (90%) than in community-acquired infections (14%). Seventy percent of patients had underlying diseases. Malignancies, renal failure, and transplantation were the most common conditions underlying nosocomial infections. Chronic lung disease and malignancies were the most common diseases underlying community-acquired infections. The case-fatality rate in nosocomial infection (70%) was greater than that in community-acquired disease (22%). Clinical, laboratory, and radiologic features of the cases were examined. Illness ranged from mild to severe. Extrapulmonary findings of encephalopathy and renal failure were more common in fatal than in non-fatal cases. Indirect immunofluorescent and microagglutination antibody responses plateaued by the fourth week of illness. Twenty-nine patients died. The case-fatality rate of patients receiving erythromycin (6%) was less than that of patients receiving penicillin (36%), ampicillin (28%), cephalosporin (32%), or aminoglycosides (41%). Despite erythromycin therapy, the case fatality rate for nosocomial L. pneumophilia pneumonia was unacceptably high (25%).
 ...
PMID:Sporadic Legionnaires' disease: clinical observations on 87 nosocomial and community-acquired cases. 646 87

With the advent of effective antiviral treatment for disseminated herpes infection it has become important to be able to make a firm clinical diagnosis of this condition. We undertook a retrospective analysis of 20 patients with disseminated herpes simplex infection diagnosed at necropsy to derive useful clinical pointers to this severe form of the disease. The most useful clinical criteria were malnutrition, post measles state, and local herpes infection in addition to encephalopathy, enlarging hepatomegaly, and deteriorating pneumonia. The liver showed characteristic histological changes in 18 of 19 patients. These clinical criteria combined with liver biopsy were applied in a prospective pilot study of five patients at risk for disseminated herpes infection and the results were encouraging.
 ...
PMID:Usefulness of clinical features and liver biopsy in diagnosis of disseminated herpes simplex infection. 648 59

The medical records of 31 immunocompromised patients who experienced varicella infections from 1975 to 1982 were reviewed. Fifteen of these patients had visceral involvement. In these 15 patients, two clinical patterns of progression were noted: (1) Eleven patients with life-threatening involvement experienced hepatitis (n = 11), pneumonitis (n = 11), abdominal pain (n = 11), encephalopathy (n = 10), coagulopathy (n = 10), inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (ADH) syndrome (n = 10), back pain or myalgia (n = 5), and myocarditis (n = 1). Seven of these patients survived, all without sequelae. (2) Four patients with a milder course experienced subclinical hepatitis (n = 4), mild pneumonitis (n = 4), postinfectious encephalitis (n = 1), and septic arthritis associated with disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (n = 1). All four of these patients recovered completely. In patients with severe involvement, intense abdominal pain was frequently the first sign of dissemination. Abdominal pain and inappropriate ADH syndrome were unexplained and have not been previously described in progressive varicella. A predictable pattern of organ involvement enabled starting therapy early and resulted in the survival of 11 of 15 patients.
 ...
PMID:Varicella in immunocompromised children. Incidence of abdominal pain and organ involvement. 661 54

Controversy still surrounds the place of portalsystemic shunting in the therapy of bleeding esophageal varices. Recently, a selective shunt, the distal splenorenal shunt, has achieved some degree of popularity and, apparently, is associated with less chronic encephalopathy. Because of this, a trial was initiated at the Massachusetts General Hospital and continued at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, prospectively randomizing central and distal splenorenal shunts in consecutive elective cases of patients with established variceal bleeding. Preoperative evaluation included endoscopic examination at the time of hemorrhage, angiography and upper gastrointestinal series, emphasis on mental function including EEG, amino acids, neurologic examination, as well as standard liver chemistries. Nineteen patients underwent central splenorenal shunts and 23 distal splenorenal shunt. There was one operative death from hemorrhagic pancreatitis in a Child's Class A patient with distal splenorenal shunt. Four late deaths, from gunshot wound, auto accident, overwhelming pneumonitis similar to postsplenectomy syndrome, and metastatic carcinoma (2.5 years after operation), have been recorded in the distal splenorenal shunt group, and none in the central splenorenal shunt group. On follow-up angiographic examination, six shunts have clotted, with three patients requiring reoperation, generally mesocaval shunt. There has been no chronic encephalopathy, three individual episodes of encephalopathy, two in the central splenorenal shunt group and one in the distal splenorenal shunt group, two associated with gastrointestinal bleeding and one with intercurrent infection and overdiuresis. Follow-up liver chemistries and amino acids which may be useful as an indicator of hepatic function suggest that although the distal shunt group had a better amino acid pattern before operation, branched-chain amino acids tend to become lower in the distal group while remaining the same in the central group. Aromatic amino acids increase post shunt, equally in the two groups. The results do not support the contention that distal splenorenal shunt is associated either with greater survival or freedom from encephalopathy than central splenorenal shunt, a small side-to-side shunt. Ascites seems better controlled by the central splenorenal shunt.
 ...
PMID:Comparison of distal and proximal splenorenal shunts: a randomized prospective trial. 697 43

Sixteen patients underwent a modification of the Sugiura procedure for bleeding esophageal varices, involving (a) esophageal transection, (b) splenectomy, (c) selective vagotomy, and (d) pyloroplasty. Five patients died, and the remaining 11 had barium studies of the esophagus and stomach which were compared with the preoperative appearance. Esophageal varices disappeared in 7 patients and persisted in 1. No recurrent bleeding or encephalopathy was seen: however, there were a large number of complications, including pleural effusion, ascites, ileus, pneumonia, and renal failure. Hepatic failure, respiratory failure, and sepsis secondary to gastrointestinal leakage also occurred and were fatal in all cases. As the Sugiura procedure is increasingly being employed in the United States, radiologists should be familiar with the spectrum of postoperative radiographic findings in the esophagus and stomach.
 ...
PMID:Radiographic findings in the esophagus following the Sugiura procedure. 697 61

Eight adult patients from Port Elizabeth with significantly raised indirect fluorescent antibody titres of greater than or equal to 256 against the Legionnaires' disease bacterium are described. One of these patients had in addition elevated antibody levels against Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The clinical manifestations of the patients ranged from an 'influenza-like' illness in 1 patient to pneumonia of varying severity in 6. One patient had a severe illness with fever, couth and encephalopathy, together with the uncharacteristic features of lymphadenopathy and a petechial rash. This patient did not have pneumonia. Attention is drawn to unusual clinical aspects in some of the patients and the need for improved definitive diagnostic procedures is emphasized.
 ...
PMID:Legionnaires' disease in Port Elizabeth. 699 44

Six sporadic cases of Legionnaires' disease seen over 13 months in the region of Lake Zurich (Switzerland) are reported. The disease was severe in all cases; 2 patients died while on artificial respiration; 5 patients were heavy smokers; 3 had probably acquired the infection in France. These 6 patients showed the following typical symptoms and signs: fever above 39 degrees C (6 patients), nonproductive cough (4), gastrointestinal symptoms (4), encephalopathy (4), renal insufficiency (5), hepatic involvement (4), bilateral pneumonia (4), and pO2 below 60 mm Hg (4). The disease was diagnosed serologically in all cases and by staining and culturing Legionella pneumophila from lung tissue in one case. The authors propose to treat unusual cases of pneumonia with erythromycin from the outset.
 ...
PMID:[Legionnaires' disease in the Lake Zurich area. Report on 6 sporadic cases]. 720 63


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>