Spirochetes- Treponema pallidum
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Spiral
organism that is tightly cork screwed- has a motility that is screw type
motion.
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Seen
in dark field back ground
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Very
sensitive to drying, but not sensitive to Oxygen
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Transmitted
by close personal sexual contact-or by soft tissue – open lesion.
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Known
to cause syphilis- both primary and secondary.
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After
entry it becomes quickly blood borne, and is most contagious for the rest of
their life.
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Can
occur in blood tranfusion
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Primary
chancer forms and is usualy painless,and uncrusted
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Secondary
chancres are caused by hemophilus ducreyi- called a soft chancre
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Latency- may not occur, but if it does, then will develop secondary syphilis-
one or more outbreak of rash- soles, hands, and palms- organism is present in
urine, saliva and tears.
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Latency may be short or long even up to 20-25 years.
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Tertiary stage-
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1.Gumma
developes- gummas are a tumor-like mass that is initiated by trauma or wound,
and occurs in the fingers, nose, liver and brain.
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2.
Cardiovascular symptoms which goes undetected for many years and destroy major
blood vessel linings, no symptoms show until just before death
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3.Neurosyphilis-results
in thickening of the menenges which results in ataxia, paresis, and atrophy of
the optic nerve, and spinal cord(Tabes Dorsalis).
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Organism
can be transmitted congenitally, but the symptoms are not the same.
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Page 712-Hutchinson’s teeth,
saber skin, saddle nose.
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Holes
in the body and the above symptoms may appear several years after birth
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Diagnosis- dark field test, serological tests-but are positive in late primary
stage but mostly in secondary stage.- test uses two types of antibodies.
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Non-Treponemal-
cardiolipin acts as an antigen in which the body makes Wasserman antibodies-
called Kahn’s test or Klein’s test
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Treponemal-
Tp compliment fixation test,
Fluorescence Tagg antibodies, TPRLAB test, and TP-immune adherence test
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Treatment-
pennicilin- does not eliminate the organism from the body but keeps it at a low
level, good for all stages of the disease. Also in the past people were
innoculated w/ malaria and the fever would kill the treponemes (Sauna
cabinets), also Mercrals were used as well.
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