TB & TB Therapy Flashcards
facultative intracellular bacillus, acid-fast pathogen that can cause chronic pneumonia and tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
- transmitted through aerosols
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is facultative in what cell?
macrophages
Examples of facultative intracellular pathogens
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis
2. Legionella
Examples of obligate intracellular pathogen
Chlamydia
Why are antibodies not very helpful for intracellular pathogens?
Drugs must penetrate into cells to be effective; most antibodies can prevent infections though.
What plays a major role in the clearance of intracellular pathogens?
cell-mediated adaptive immune responses
Special characteristics of mycobacterium membranes
- Has peptidoglycan but has mycolic acid in outer membrane (neither gram - or +)
- No LPS
What stain is used for mycobacterium?
acid fast stains
- Ziehl-Neelsen
- Fluorescent Auramine-Rhodamin
Why is TB often undiagnosed in primary TB phase?
It takes about 6-8 weeks after exposure to mycobacterium for the PPD skin test to be positive; PPD skin test will be false negative if tested too early.
Studies suggest that some people can clear M.tuberculosis even after exposure because of
the clearance by their innate immune mechanism (still unclear why)
People with _______ have the highest risk for developing active TB
HIV
*TB-HIV Syndemic”
Why is HIV the strongest risk factor developing active TB?
Hastens progression from primary/latent TB infection to disease
*(TB accelerates the progression of HIV as well)
TB can be harder to diagnose in HIV infected individuals (True or False)
True (if you already have a depressed immune system, you won’t respond to the skin test as well)
People with HIV and latent TB have a 10% chance of reactivation EVERY year (True or False)
True
Long-lasting bad cough, Hemoptysis, Chest pain, Weight loss, Fever, and Night sweats are symptoms of
active TB
What causes the symptoms of active TB
the immune response (cytokines such as IL-1 and TNF-a, macrophages and T cells)
What can spontaneously occur in 6 months of TB?
spontaneous healing
How does TB survive in macrophages?
Arrest phagosome maturation (doesn’t get acidic enough to kill it)
TB-infected macrophages have what histological appearance?
foamy appearance due to lipid accumulation
Protection against TB is highly dependent on
TH1 mediated (CD4 and CD8) response
TB-infected macrophages induce TH1 response via
IL-12
CD4 and CD8 cells make what cytokine to activate infected macrophages, leading to oxygen/nitrogen radicals being produced and lysosome fusion
IFN-gamma
The end-product of TH1 immune response to TB
Formation of a multi-cellular granuloma that walls off the infection (making it not infectious)
What structure denotes latent TB infection?
granuloma (mycobacterium adopt a non-replication persistent states to survive in granulomas)
Reactivation of latent TB means
Granulomas has deteriorated and M. tuberculosis is reactivated, triggering overly robust T-cell response leading to lung damage.
Reactivation TB disease is highly
infectious
How does TB react in HIV patients?
primary infection is not controlled, so dissemination occurs throughout lungs (milliary TB)
miliary TB appears like _____ on CXR
millet seeds
Diagnostic tests for ACTIVE TB
- Acid fast bacillus (AFB) staining of sputum
- Culture bacilli from sputum on lowenstein-jensen agar
- Xpert MTB/RIF (allows detection of mycobacterium & rifampicin resistance)
- 3 consecutive sputum samples are needed
- culture takes weeks to grow in vitro
Which test is suggested by the WHO for initial diagnostic for people suggested of having MDR TB or HIV co-infection
Xpert MTB/RIF test (2 hour PCR test)