Naegleria Fowleri Flashcards
Habitat:
Fresh water, moist soil and mud
Inside man: olfactory bulb, sinuses and brain.
Diseases:
Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM)
Mode of infection:
Through the nose.
Swimming in fresh water lakes or in an infected pools and snuffing of polluted water containging trophozoite.
Life cycle:
Trophozoite lives in warm stagnant water in hot summer
It snuffed into nasopharynx and penetrate the cribriform plate to brain and meningees.
Pathogenicity :
- Vegetative (amoeboid) adheres to epithelium cells causing lysis.
- Trophozoite migrates through tissue.
- it secretes proteolytic enz.
- It ingests RBCs and defensive leukocytes.
Pathology :
It causes rapid progressive; purulent; hemorrhagic necrosis of brain.
It affects :
Healthy young people 10-20 years.
Symptoms:
It apear 3-7 days after exposure to infection as acute meningitis with fever, severe frontal headache and vomiting.
Rapid distortion in taste and smell from the onset of the disease.
Neck stiffness, convulsions and deep coma with heart failure and lung distress.
Rapid fatal disease:
Patient dies within week from the onset of symptoms.
Diagnosis:
Clinical picture with recent history of swimming in fresh water lakes.
Leukocytosis
For diagnosis, Demonstration of the parasite in :
CSF by spinal puncture, we examine it (wet mount- without stain) to see motile trophozoite.
T or F
No cyst are present whem examine CSF
T
T or F
Stain with iron-hematoxylin and eosin to confirm the diagnosis
T
Characters of CSF:
++ pressure
Large number of WBCs mainly polymorph
— glucose level & +++ protein l.
No cyst
Negative gram stain (exclude bacterial meningitis)
Purulent but aseptic (no bacterial growth in culture)
Scraping of nasal mucosa for detection of trophozoite.
Treatment:
Amphotericin B, systemic intravenous and intrathecal.
