Week #9 Flashcards
What are some common microbiota of the respiratory tract? more than 50%
- Viridans Streptococci, Neisseria spp, Corynebacterium spp, gram negative anaerobes, H.influenza, C. albicans, S. pneumoniae (15%-85%)
What is the most common type of bacteria living in the upper respiratory tract?
- Gram negative anaerobes
AIDS defining illness
- AIDS defining illness
- an example is pneumocystis jiroveci
What are some of the causes of the common cold?
- Rhinovirus, parainfluenza virus, RSV, enterovirus, coronavirus, human metapneumovirus (HMPV)
What are some of the common causes of pharyngitis/tonsilitis (with nasal involvement)
- adenovirus, enterovirus, parainfluenza, influenza
- (with nasal involvement is less likely to be a bacterium)
What are some of the causes of pharyngitis/tonsilitis (without nasal involvement)
- adenovirus, enterovirus, reovirus, influenza, Strept. pyogenes, Strept groups C and G
Pharyngitis and tonsilitis with an associated rash is more likely to be viral or bacterial?
- more likely to be a bacterial infection
- but sometimes Group A strept infections don’t get a rash
- A caveat is that sometimes we can get a rash when we treat amoxycillin with EBV and it is some kind of reaction between them-not indicative of treating the bacterium
What are some of the common causes of Sinusitis?
primary and secondary?
- Common colds can spread through the tubes from the throat to the sinuses and then oince the epithelium has been damaged byt the virus it is more susceptible to bacterial infeciton from organisms that are part of the microbiota: H. influenzae, Strept. pneumoniae
- Primary: viral (part of common cold syndrome)
Secondary: H. influenzae, Strept. pneumoniae
What are some of the causes of Otitis media?
- Similar to sinutis in that primary viral infection causes oem damage to the epithelium and then this increases susceptobility to infeciton form normal microbiota: Pneumococci, H. influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis
- ussually primary viral infection may be asymptomatic
What are some of the causes of Epiglottis?
- very rare condition nowadays
- caused by H.influenza type B (Hib)
- we have the Hib vaccine now
- very serious condition
Image of primary viral infections leading to secondary bacterial infections
What is the Eustachian tube?
- Connects the middle ear to the nasopharynx
Would you do a diagnosis for the followwing:
- Common cold
- Pharyngitis/tonsilitis
- sinusitis
- otitis media
- epiglottis
- Croup (LTB)
- unnecassary
- if possible
- seldom necassary
- seldom necassary
- whenever possible
- cannot touch the epiglottis though
- take X-ray to see if the epiglottis is swollen and then take blood sample as it would be a systemic infection
- could be strange bugs etc
- seldom necassary
How would we treat the folling URTI?
Note that most treatment is supportive-aspirin/pannadol etc-may become more infectious with aspirin
- Common cold
- Pharyngitis/tonsilitis
- sinusitis
- otitis media
- epiglottiris
- Croup (LTB)
- no treatment available
- if bacterial
- becasue we want to prevent complications of group A strept-peri-tonsil abcess, acute rheumatic fever
- can still use penicillin G for group A strept
- if bacterial and severe
- co-amoxyclav-to deal with H. influenzae or S. pneumonia
- if <2 yo or prolonged and severe
- essential
- usuually none, inhaled steroids if severe
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Acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis are commonly caused by which infectious agents?
- Usually pneumococci and/or H. influenzae
- i.e. part of the microbiota
What is Bronchiolitis, and what causes it?
- Inflammation of the bronchioles often caused by RSV
- long expiratory wheeze due to constriction of the airways due to inflammation
- gas trapping
What are some of the causes of acute (typical) pneumonia? and what is the pattern of inflammation
- Almost all cases of community acquired pneumonia is caused by streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococci) in hospital acquired pneumonia could be more of others including H. influenzae, Staph., Klebs., Legionella, TB, Chlamydophila
- More sudden onset, cough with sputum and blood and high fever
- Typical pneumonia is more lobar in its site and inflammation seems to be in the alveoli
What are some of the causes of acute (atypical) pneumonia? and what is the pattern of inflammation? and disease course?
- Most common cause is mycoplasma pneumonia (rmb doesn’t have cell wall)
- Other causes are Chlamydia, M. catarrhalis, influenza, RSV, adenovirus, etc
- More gradual onset, had a cough with not that much sputum and no blood.
- diffuse and patchy pneumonia and inflammation is interstitial tissue
What are some of the fungal causes of pneumonia?
- Histoplasma, Aspergillus, Pneumocystis
What are some of the causes of lung abscess
- Pneumonia may have resolved but abscess is left behind
- caused by mixed anaerobes Staph, Klebsiella
What is Empyema and what are some of its causes?
- Empyema is pus in the pleural space
- Staph. aureus, secondary to pneumonia
What are some of the must know diagnoses of Pneumonia?
and some should know pathogens
Must know
- SARS, MERS
- Influenza (H5N1 and H7N9 etc)
- Legionella spp
- can replicate in amoebe in cooling towers for air conditioning.
- Bioterrorism agents-anthrax, plague etc
- Community acquired MRSA
Should know
- Penicillin G resistant S. pneumoniae
- P.aurigenosa-resistant to lots of antibiotics
What are some clinical considerations you may make when looking at diagnosing
- Community or hospital acquired
- Underlying illness: COPD, AIDS, cystic fibrosis
- Other risk factors:
- contact with animal hides
- baccilus anthracis
- air conditioning
- legionella
- repotting soil
- Legionella longbeachae
- contact with animal hides
List some methods and mention some limitations for collecting samples to diagnose pneumoniae?
- properly collected sputum
- can be contaminated by saliva which will naturally have pneumonia causing organisms in it
- but can then gram stain and look for PMN cells and lots of gram positive diplococci-i.e. will most likely bee streptococci pneumoniae
- transtracheal aspirate
- aspiration via tracheostomy, endotracheal tube
- aspiration via bronchoscope
- inject saline and then collect what is coughed up
- pleural tap (if effusion)
- lung biopsy (by needle or open)
- not as invasive as it once was and you would do it in the case of non resolving pneumonia not responding to antibiotics
- blood for culture and serology
- organism is often not present in blood although if it is it would most likely be causing the pneumonia
When is serological diagnosis of pneumonia usefull?
- Usefull in the diagnosis of hard-to-culture bacteria:
- Mycoplasma pneumoniae
- Legionella pneumophila
- Chlamydophila and Chlamydia species
- Coxiella burnetii
- Coxciella is intracellular bacteria but doesn’t have life cycle and also causes typhus fever which is spread by arthropods
- Look for specific Ig with rising titres
- Antigen detection for:
- common viruses
- finding RSV in the upper respiratory tract is much more informative of what is going on in the lower respiratory tract. So unlike bacterial LRT taking a swab of the URT for viral infections may be more informative
- Bordetella
- Legionella pneumophila type 1
- sample is actually urine
- common viruses
Treatment of Pneumonia for community acquired and non-community acquired pneumonia?
Community acquired pneumonia
- Likely cause is pneumococci but we want to cover bases-Pen G/amoxycillin are to deal with pneumococci, deoxycycline/macrolide are used to deal with other causes-mycoplasma, leigonella, chlamydia are susceptible to tetracyclines and macrolides but probably resistant to penicillin
Hospital acquired
- depends on severity and risk group
- severity index etc and risk group
What is the action of glucocorticoids in asthma?
Glucocorticoids reduce:
- activity, recruitment and survival of eosinophils; T lymphocytes
- activation of mast cell cytokine production
- although Mast cell degranulation is unchanged
- macrophage cytokine production
- IL-5, IL-1 and TNF-alpha are supressed as are some chemokines. IL-4 however is not supressed
- Proliferation, cytokine and collagen production by smooth muscle and fibroblasts
What is the molecular mechanism of glucocorticoids?
What are the two processes of inducing the anti-inflammatory state through gene expression modification?
- There are two major genomic actions but there are other non genomic actions as well.
- The steroid engages with cytoplasmic glucocorticoid receptor which translocates into the nucleues and forms dimers which produce zinc finger transcription factors which then inter-digitate in the specific recognition sites of the promoter regions of certain genes and the consequence of the binding is typically the increase of transcription but there are also genes which are downregulated
- So the two outcomes are either Transpression or Transactivation depending on whether the GR activates transcription or down-regulates transcription
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What is transactivation and what is the the form of the glucocorticoid which causes this modification of transcription?
What are some examples of the genes transactivatged by glucocorticoids?
- Activating of anti-inflammatory genes is transactivtivation and this occurs through the GCS and the GR as a dimer (GCS/GR)2
- Glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper (GILZ)
- MAPK phosphatase-1 (MKP-1)
- Inhibitor of κBa (IκBa)
What is transpression and what is the the form of the glucocorticoid which causes this modification of transcription?
- Transpression is where the GCS tunes down expression of some pro-inflammatory genes
- the monomer of the GCS and the GR can interact with target proteins and then prevent signalling occuring from pro-inflammatory transcription factors through recruiting (for example) histodeacetylase-2 which can re-pack the chromatin around the promoter region which will disfavour the recruitment of the RNA polymerase and therefore prevents the trasncription of the genes IL-8, COX-2, ICAM-1, NOS2, NFκB.
What is the process of NFκB activation?
How does GILZ and IκBα exhert their non-inflammatory effects?
What is the process of AP-1 activation?
How does MKP-1 exhert its non-inflammatory effects?
- Cytokine recepotor ligation ends up activating IκK (IκKinase) which phosphorylates the IκBα which then marks if for ubiquitination and then that undergoes proteosomal degradation which then allows NFκB to be released which then translocates into the nucleus and can then cause transcription of many pro-inflammatory genes.
- GCS can modulate this process by upregulating IκBα and by inducing GILZ which inhibits NFκB independently of IκBα
- JNK is a receptor for cytokines which upon phosphorylation becomes JNK-P which then recruits Jun which then becomes Jun-P which then activates AP-1 which can then activate the transcription of more pro-inflammatory genes
- MKP-1 is able to diminish JNK phosphorylation
When do we use GCS to treat asthma?
- If β2 agonists are needed more than 3 times a week then we need GCS
What are some examples of topical (inhaled) GCS?
What has the impact of the introduction of inhaled GCS for the treatment of asthma achieved on a populaiton level?
- Budesonide and Fluticasone propionate is avaliable in combination with Beta-2 agonist (LABA)
- less severe and less frequent asthma exacerbations
What are some example of oral GCS?
When would we use oral GCS?
- Prednisolone
- Several days: for acute exacerbations
- Chronically: only for very severe asthma because of many side-effects
What are some of the side effects of inhaled GCS?
- Generally well tolerated
- Change in voice, oral thrush, decrease in serum cortisol (possibly just a measurable effect rather than one that leads to physiological outcome).
What are some of the side effects of oral GCS?
- dose and indication limiting SE:
- osteoporosis, diabetes, muscle wasting, hypertension, growth supression, can get withdrawal phenomenon due to the supression of the adrenal-pituitary-hypothalamic axis
- must ween of chronic use to avoid withdrawal symptoms
How can oral GCS result in withdrawal symptoms?
- Cortisol and synthetic GCS are able to inhibit the release of corticotrophin releasing hormone and of ACTH from the anterior pituitary gland
so when patients are administerred GCS the adrenal gland actually undergoes atrophy due to loss of stimualtion and production of cortisol is dramatically decreased. - So if oral GCS are suddenly stopped the adrenal gland will not be able to repair itself that quickly and there will be a cortisol crisis
Methylxanthines and Phosphodiesterase Inhibitors
Provide an example and explain its function and its side effects? and provide a newer drug with fewer s.e
- Theophylline
- not entirely sure of the mechanism of action though it does have PDE inhibition activity (PDE breaks down cAMP) results in SM relaxation.
- HDAC2 activation (prevents transcription of some genes)
- adenosine antagonism
- but not sure which one is the most important, if any.
- Side effects:
- nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, CNS stimulation, dysrythmia.
- Also there is not much margin for error, i.e. the therapeutic doe is close to the maximal tolerated dose.
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Roflumilast has reduced incidence and severity of SE but still some-is being used for COPD.
- Roflumilast is a Phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor