Exam 2 Flashcards
Host
Individual infected with a disease-producing organism.
Protozoa
Simple one-celled animal parasites, such as the plasmodium causing malaria.
Metazoa
Complex multicelled animal parasites, such as worms and flukes.
Anthropod
an invertebrate animal of the large phylum Arthropoda, such as an insect, spider, or crustacean.
Toxoplasma gondii
A small intracellular parasite of birds, animals, and humans. Causes the disease toxoplasmosis.
Pinworm
A small parasitic worm infecting humans. Lives in lower bowel and causes perianal pruritus.
Crab louse
A parasite of the pubic area; causes intense itching.
Communicable disease
A disease transmitted from person to person.
Endemic disease
A communicable disease in which small numbers of cases are continually present in a population.
Epidemic disease
A communicable disease affecting concurrently large numbers of persons in a population.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
An infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus. The virus attacks and destroys helper T lymphocytes, which compromises cell-mediated immunity, leading to increased susceptibility to infection and some tumors.
Treponema pallidum
The spiral organism causing syphilis.
Opportunistic infection
An infection in an immunocompromised person caused by an organism that is normally nonpathogenic or of limited pathogenicity.
Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors
Drugs used to treat HIV infections that bind to reverse transcriptase, blocking DNA polymerase that converts RNA to DNA.
Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors
Nucleoside analogs (‘look alike compounds’) that resemble the normal nucleosides that a virus uses to construct DNA. Synthesis is disrupted when the analog substitutes for the required nucleoside.
Protease inhibitors
Drugs used to treat HIV infection that block the enzyme that cuts the viral protein into segments and assembles them around the viral RNA to form the infectious virus particle. As a result, the virus particle is improperly constructed and is not infectious.
Polyp
A descriptive term for a benign tumor projecting from an epithelial surface.
Papilloma
A descriptive term for a benign tumor projecting from an epithelial surface.
Sarcoma
A malignant tumor arising from connective and supporting tissues.
Melanoma
A malignant tumor of pigmentproducing cells.
Teratoma
A tumor of mixed cell components.
Dermoid cyst
A common type of benign cystic teratoma that commonly arises in the ovary.