Case Studies: Fungal and Parasitic Diseases
For each of these try to determine the disease and the underlying pathogenic mechanisms responsible
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key identifying symptoms
CASE 1
Two adult teaching volunteers
in a school were seen by their physicians because each had developed well-demarcated,
scaly, itchy lesions on their skin. Clinical history revealed that these lesions
had developed over a period of several weeks since they started their work.
Microscopic examination of skin scales taken from the lesions showed the presence
of fungal elements and cultures grew Trichophyton.
CASE 2
The patient
was a 32-year-old student from Kenya living in Canada. He had fevers to 38°
C and swollen lymph nodes at the back of his neck for eight months. Two weeks
ago he developed a severe headache, stiff neck, and an aversion to light (photophobia).
Protozoans were seen on Giemsa-stained specimens of blood and cerebrospinal
fluid. The patient was treated with two drugs and recovered after 4 weeks.
CASE 3
The patient, a 45-year-old woman had been generally healthy before admission to the hospital. In the preceding four months her weight decreased and she reported night sweats and fatigue. Her history included two blood transfusion received while on vacation outside of the U.S. for injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
On admission
she had a fever of 38.4° C, nonproductive cough, bilateral pulmonary infiltrates
on chest X-ray, and mild hypoxia. On the basis of her history of blood transfusion
she was tested for HIV antibodies and found positive. An open lung biopsy
revealed cysts of the organism causing her breathing difficulty. She was treated
with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and later switched to pentamadine.
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