Environmental and Nutritional Disease - Chapter 9

Question 1

Define Marasmus

Answer 1

A child is considered to have marasmus when weight falls to 60% of normal for sex, height, and weight. A marasmic child suffers growth retardation and loss of muscle. The loss of muscle mass results from catabolism and depletion of the somatic protein compartment.

Question 2

Kwashiorkor.

Answer 2

Kwashiorkor occurs when protein deprivation is relatively greater than the reduction in total calories.
Both are forms of protein-energy malnutrition. The central anatomic changes in PEM are:
1. growth failure
2. peripheral edema in Kwashiorkor
3. loss of body fate and atrophy of muscle, more marked in Marasmus (p. 433)

Question 3

Night blindness is usually due to a deficiency of what vitamin?

Answer 3

Vitamin A (p. 438)

Question 4

Name three clinical findings associated with Vitamin D deficiency (rickets in children).

Answer 4

1. Frontal bossing of the head
2. Rachitic rosary widened ribs
3. Bowing of the legs (p. 441)

Question 5

A deficiency of Vitamin K results in decreased levels of what clotting factors within the blood?

Answer 5

II, VII, IX and X (p. 443)

Question 6

Vitamin D deficiency results in a condition known as_____.

Answer 6

Rickets in children
Osteomalacia in adults (p. 438)

Question 7

Folate deficiency results in a condition known as _______.

Answer 7

Megaloblastic anemia, also results in neural tube defects (p. 443)

Question 8

A deficiency of Vitamin B12 results in a condition known as________.

Answer 8

Megaloblastic pernicious anemia and degeneration of posterolateral spinal cord tracts (p. 443)

Question 9

A deficiency of Vitamin B12 results in a condition known as________.

Answer 9

Megaloblastic pernicious anemia and degeneration of posterolateral spinal cord tracts (p. 443)

Question 10

Obesity associated with hypoventilation and hypersomnolence is known as ____syndrome.

Answer 10

Hypoventilation or Pickwickian (p. 448)

Question 11

Define pneumoconiosis.

Answer 11

Inhalation of mineral dusts which cause non-neoplastic lung diseases (p. 414)

Question 12

Give the most common benign form of pneumoconiosis seen in autopsy pathology.

Answer 12

Anthracosis (Not in Robbins)

Question 13

The ingestion of ethyl alcohol exerts its prime toxic effect after absorption by oxidation to acetaldehyde in _____.

Answer 13

Liver (p. 417)

Question 14

If a patient comes to autopsy whose skin is bright cherry red and multiple petechiae are noted throughout the cerebral hemispheres, the possibility of acute ____ poisoning should be considered.

Answer 14

Carbon Monoxide (p. 409)

Question 15

The most characteristic hematologic finding of patients with lead poisoning is _______.

Answer 15

Microcytic hypochromic anemia accompanied by mild hemolysis and with punctate basophilic stippling of red cells. (p. 411)

Question 16

Name several complications of oral contraceptive use.

Answer 16

1. thromboembolism
2. cardiovascular disease
3. hepatic adenoma (p. 421)

Question 17

Define and differentiate abrasion and laceration.

Answer 17

Abrasion – a wound produced by scraping or rubbing, resulting in removal of the superficial layer. Skin abrasions remove only the epidermal layer.
Laceration – a tear or disruptive stretching of tissue caused by the application of force by a blunt object. Most lacerations have intact bridging blood vessels and jagged, irregular edges.
(Not in Robbins)