Articles on Medical Diseases and Conditions

Entries Tagged ‘Diagnosis’

Cryptosporidium

Cryptosporidium is another sporozoan organism with some similarities to Toxoplasma. It was originally found in cattle with diarrhea, where it caused diarrhea in calves (predominantly 7-14 days old but sometimes up to 30 days old). Other animals and some birds (including turkeys and chickens) also can become infected. Cryptosporidium was next reported to cause diarrhea […]

Giardia Lamblia

This protozoan lives in the duodenum and proximal jejunum and is said to be the most frequent intestinal parasite in the United States. An estimated 3%-7% of U.S. adults may have the disease. The organism is usually transmitted through fecal (sewage) contamination of water. Chloridation will not kill Giardia lamblia, but iodine will. Some reports […]

Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis is caused by a protozoan organism, Toxoplasma gondii. About 30%-50% (range, 3%-70%) of the U.S. population is reported to have serologic evidence of past infection. The disease is transmitted in some cases via raw or poorly cooked meat but in many cases by oocysts in feces of infected cats. The cats shed oocysts for […]

Rabies

Human disease from rabies virus infection is very uncommon in the United States. The number of human cases in the United States is usually less than five per year, and only nine were reported from 1980 to 1987. However, there are always questions about the disease, and several thousand cases of animal rabies are confirmed […]

Diagnosis of Viral Diseases

Culture. Until the 1980s, except in a relatively few cases the only available laboratory methods were culture and serologic tests for antibodies. There have been significant advances in culture techniques in the past few years, but most virus culture still is difficult and expensive. Culture is performed using living cell preparations or in living tissues. […]

Septicemia and Bacteremia

The concept of septicemia should probably be separated from that of bacteremia, although in many studies the two are not clearly separated. In bacteremia, a few bacteria from a focal area of infection escape from time to time into the peripheral blood. However, the main focus remains localized, and symptoms are primarily those that are […]

Diagnosis of Chronic Iron Deficiency

The usual signals of iron deficiency are a decreased MCV (or anemia with a low-normal MCV) or elevated RDW. Hypochromia with or without microcytosis on peripheral blood smear is also suspicious. Conditions frequently associated with chronic iron deficiency (e.g., malabsorption, megaloblastic anemia, pregnancy, infants on prolonged milk feeding) should also prompt further investigation. The major […]