NEET MDS Lessons
General Pathology
Bacterial meningitis (pyogenic, suppurative infections)
1. Common causes include:
a. Escherichia coli in newborns.
b. Haemophilus influenzae in infants and children.
c. Neisseria meningitides in young adults.
d. Streptococcus pneumoniae and Listeria monocytogenes in older adults.
Clinical findings include severe headache, irritability, fever, and a stiff neck.
a. A spinal tap shows CSF fluid that is cloudy or purulent and is under increased pressure. There is also an increase in protein and a decrease in glucose levels.
3. Can be fatal if left untreated.
Parasitic
1. Leishmania produce 3 kinds of disease in man
- visceral leishmaniasis (kala azar) due to Leishmania donovani complex,
- cutaneous leishmaniasis due to Leishmania tropica complex, and
- mucocutaneous leishmaniasis due to Leishmania braziliensis.
- cutaneous (Oriental sore) and mucocutansous leishmaniasis limit themselves to the skinalone (ulcers) in the former disease and skin plus mucous membranes in the latter variant.
- the diagnosis of cutaneous or mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is made by biopsy, culture, skin test, or serologic tests
- the laboratory diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis is made by performing a bone marrow aspirate and finding the leishmanial forms in macrophages, by culture, by hamster inoculation, or by serology.
- recovery from the cutaneous form incurs immunity.
- treatment: stibogluconate
Biliary cirrhosis(16%)
It is due diffuse chronic cholestaisis (obstruction of the biliary flow) leading to damage and scarring all over the liver. Two types are known
1. Primary biliary cirrhosis and
2. Secondary biliary cirrhosis.
Primary biliary cirrhosis
It is destructive chronic inflammation of intrahepatic bile ductules and small ducts leading to micronodular cirrhosis.
-Typically affects middle aged women.
- Patients present with fatigue, pruritis and eventually, jaundice.
Cause:- Autoimmune. Patients have autoantibodies directed against mitochondrial enzymes (AMA).
Pathology:-
Liver is enlarged, dark green in color (cholestaisis). Cirrhosis is micronodular.
M/E :-
- Early, portal tracts show lymphocytes and plasma cell infiltrate the bile ducts and destroy them.
- Granulomatous inflammation surrounding the damaged and inflamed bile ducts is the hallmark of (PBC).
- Cholestatic changes such as bile ductular proliferation, periportal Mallory’s hyaline and increased copper in periportal hepatocytes.
- In the end stage disease, micro nodular cirrhosis occurs and the inflammatory changes subside
Secondary biliary cirrhosis:-
It is extra hepatic (surgical) cholestaisis due to prolonged extra hepatic major bile duct obstruction.
Causes - Obstruction of hepatic or common bile duct by:
- Congenital biliary atresia.
- Pressure by enlarged LN or tumor * Biliary stones.
- Carcinoma of the bile duct, ampulla of Vater or pancreatic head
Effects of obstruction:-
Complete obstruction leads to back pressure all over the biliary tract
- damage by inspessated bile
- inflammation and scarring.
Incomplete obstruction leads to acute suppurative cholangitis and cholangiolitis.
Chickenpox (varicella)
- primarily a childhood disease (70%)
- incubation period 14-16 days; highly contagious; infectious 2 days before the vesicles until the last one dries.
- present with generalized, intensely pruritic skin lesions starting as macules vesicles pustules (MVP-most valuable player) usually traveling centrifugally to the face and out to the extremities; unlike smallpox vesicles, chickenpox vesicles appear in varying stages of development as successive crops of lesions appear; intranuclear inclusions similar to HSV.
- pneumonia develops in 1/3 of adults; MCC death in chickenpox.
- association with Reye's syndrome if child takes aspirin.
NECROSIS
Definition: Necrosis is defined as the morphologic changes caused by the progressive degradative
action of enzymes on the lethally injured cell.
These changes are due to
I. Autolysis and
2. Heterolysis.
The cellular changes of necrosis i.e. death of circumscribed group of cells in continuity with living tissues are similar to changes in tissues following somatic death, except that in the former, there is leucocytic infiltration in reaction to the dead cells and the lytic
enzymes partly come from the inflammatory cell also. (Heterolysis). Cell death occurs in the normal situation of cell turnover also and this is called apoptosis-single cellular dropout.
Nuclear changes in necrosis
As cytoplasmic changes are a feature of degeneration ,similarly nuclear changes are the hallmark of necrosis. These changes are:
(i) Pyknosis –condensation of chromatin
(ii) Karyorrhexis - fragmentation
(iii) Karyolysis - dissolution
Types of necrosis
(1) Coagulative necrosis: Seen in infarcts. The architectural outlines are maintained though structural details are lost. E.g, myocardial infarct.
(2) Caseous necrosis: A variant of coagulative necrosis seen in tuberculosis. The architecture is destroyed, resulting in an eosinophilic amorphous debris.
(3) Colliquative (liquifactive). Necrosis seen in Cerebral infarcts and suppurative necrosis.
Gangrenous necrosis: It is the necrosis with superadded putrefaction
May be:
a. dry - coagulative product.
b. Wet - when there is bacterial liquifaction.
Fat necrosis
May be:
a. Traumatic (as in breast and subcutaneous tissue).
b Enzymatic (as in pancreatitis). It shows inflammation of fat with formation of lipophages and giant cells.
This is often followed by deposition of calcium as calcium soaps.
Hyaline necrosis: Seen in skeletal muscles in typhoid and in liver ceIs in some forms of hepatitis.
Fibrinoid necrosis: In hypertension and in immune based diseases.
Clinical & biologic death
Clinical death
Clinical death is the reversible transmission between life and biologic death. Clinical death is defined as the period of respiratory, circulatory and brain arrest during which initiation of resuscitation can lead to recovery.
Signs indicating clinical death are
• The patient is without pulse or blood pressure and is completely unresponsive to the most painful stimulus.
• The pupils are widely dilated
• Some reflex reactions to external stimulation are preserved. For example, during intubations, respiration may be restored in response to stimulation of the receptors of the superior laryngeal nerve, the nucleus of which is located in the medulla oblongata near the respiratory center.
• Recovery can occur with resuscitation.
Biological Death
Biological death (sure sign of death), which sets in after clinical death, is an irreversible state
of cellular destruction. It manifests with irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory
functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including brain stem.
Str. Pneumoniae
Probably the most important streptococci. Primary cause of pneumonia. Usually are diplococci. Ste. pneumoniae are α-hemolytic and nutritionally fastidious. Often are normal flora.
Key virulence factor is the capsule polysaccharide which prevents phagocytosis. Other virulence factors include pneumococcal surface protein and α-hemolysin.
Major disease is pneumonia, usually following a viral respiratory infection. Characterized by fever, cough, purulent sputum. Bacteria infiltrates alveoli. PMN’s fill alveoli, but don’t cause necrosis. Also can cause meningitis, otitis, sinusitis.
There are vaccines against the capsule polysaccharide. Resistance to penicillin, cephalosporins, erythromycins, and fluoroquinalones is increasing.