NEET MDS Lessons
General Pathology
Post viral (post hepatitic) cirrhosis (15-20%)
Cause:- Viral hepatitis (mostly HBV or HCV)
Acute hepatitis → chronic hepatitis → cirrhosis.
Pathology
Liver is shrunken. Fatty change is absent (except with HCV). Cirrhosis is mixed.
M/E :-
Hepatocytes-show degeneration, necrosis as other types of cirrhosis.
Fibrous septa -They are thick and immature (more cellular and vascular).
- Irregular margins (piece meal necrosis).
- Heavy lymphocytic infiltrate.
Prognosis:- - More rapid course than alcoholic cirrhosis.Hepatocellular carcinoma is more liable to occur
General chromosome abnormalities
The normal human cell contains 46 chromosomes, including 22 homologous pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes (XX for female and XY for male). A somatic cell is diploid, containing 46 chromosomes. Gametes are haploid, containing 23 chromosomes.
Aneuploidy
(a) Any deviation in the number of chromosomes, whether fewer or more, from the normal haploid number of chromosomes.
(b) Nondisjunction—a common cause of aneuploidy. It is the failure of chromosomes to pass to separate cells during meiotic or mitotic cell division.
(c) Often seen in malignant tumors.
Deletion: loss of a sequence of DNA from a chromosome.
Translocation: the separation of a chromosome and the attachment of the area of separation to another chromosome.
FUNGAL INFECTION
Aspergillosis
Opportunistic infections caused by Aspergillus sp and inhaled as mold conidia, leading to hyphal growth and invasion of blood vessels, hemorrhagic necrosis, infarction, and potential dissemination to other sites in susceptible patients.
Symptoms and Signs: Noninvasive or, rarely, minimally locally invasive colonization of preexisting cavitary pulmonary lesions also may occur in the form of fungus ball (aspergilloma) formation or chronic progressive aspergillosis.
Primary superficial invasive aspergillosis is uncommon but may occur in burns, beneath occlusive dressings, after corneal trauma (keratitis), or in the sinuses, nose, or ear canal.
Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis usually extends rapidly, causing progressive, ultimately fatal respiratory failure unless treated promptly and aggressively. A. fumigatus is the most common causative species.
Extrapulmonary disseminated aspergillosis may involve the liver, kidneys, brain, or other tissues and is usually fatal. Primary invasive aspergillosis may also begin as an invasive sinusitis, usually caused by A. flavus, presenting as fever with rhinitis and headache
Alcoholic (nutritional, Laennec’s) cirrhosis
Pathology
Liver is at first enlarged (fatty change), then return to normal size and lastly, it becomes slightly reduced in size (1.2 kg or more).
- Cirrhosis is micronodular then macronodular then mixed.
M/E
Hepatocytes:- show fatty change that decreases progressively. Few hepatocytes show increased intracytoplasmic haemochromatosis.
b. Fibrous septa:- Regular margins between it and regenerating nodules.
-Moderate lymphocytic infiltrate.
– Slight bile ductular proliferation.
Prognosis:- It Progresses slowly over few years.
Measles (rubeola)
-incubation period 7 to 14 days
-begins with fever (up to 40 degrees C), cough, conjunctivitis (photophobia is first sign), and coryza (excessive mucous production)Æfollowed by Koplik's spots (red with white center) in the mouth, posterior cervical Lymphadenopathy, and a generalized, blanching, maculopapular, brownish-pink rash (viral induced vasculitis) beginning at the hairline and extending down over the body which gradually resolves in 5 days with some desquamation.
Jaundice, or icterus
a. Characterized by yellowness of tissues, including skin, eyes, and mucous membranes.
b. Caused by excess conjugated and/or unconjugated serum bilirubin. (increased levels of bilirubin in the blood)
lcterus is visible when the serum bilirubin exceeds 2 mg/dl. In unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia, bilirubin is not excreted into the urine because of tight protein binding in serum. In conjugated hyperbilirubinemia, small amounts of bilirubin are excreted in the urine because
it is less tightly protein bound.
NOTE: Concentration of bilirubin in blood plasma does not normally exceed 1 mg/dL (>17µmol/L). A concentration higher than 1.8 mg/dL (>30µmol/L) leads to jaundice.
The conjunctiva of the eye are one of the first tissues to change color as bilirubin levels rise in jaundice. This is sometimes referred to as scleral icterus.
c. Types and causes include:
(1) Hepatocellular jaundice—caused by liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatitis.
(2) Hemolytic jaundice—caused by hemolytic anemias.
(3) Obstructive jaundice—caused by blockage of the common bile duct either by gallstones (cholelithiasis) or carcinomas involving the head of
the pancreas.
Differential diagnosis
Jaundice is classified into three categories, depending on which part of the physiological mechanism the pathology affects. The three categories are:
Pre-hepatic → The pathology is occurring prior to the liver.
Hepatic → The pathology is located within the liver.
Post-Hepatic → The pathology is located after the conjugation of bilirubin in the liver.
Pre-hepatic
Pre-hepatic jaundice is caused by anything which causes an increased rate of hemolysis (breakdown of red blood cells).
Certain genetic diseases, such as sickle cell anemia, spherocytosis, thalassemia and glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency can lead to increased red cell lysis and therefore hemolytic jaundice.
Commonly, diseases of the kidney, such as hemolytic uremic syndrome, can also lead to coloration. Defects in bilirubin metabolism also
present as jaundice, as in Gilbert's syndrome (a genetic disorder of bilirubin metabolism which can result in mild jaundice, which is found in about 5% of the population) and Crigler-Najjar syndrome.
In jaundice secondary to hemolysis, the increased production of bilirubin, leads to the increased production of urine-urobilinogen. Bilirubin is not usually found in the urine because unconjugated bilirubin is not water-soluble, so, the combination of increased urine-urobilinogen with no bilirubin (since, unconjugated) in urine is suggestive of hemolytic jaundice.
Laboratory findings include:
• Urine: no bilirubin present, urobilinogen > 2 units (i.e., hemolytic anemia causes increased heme metabolism; exception: infants where gut flora has not developed).
• Serum: increased unconjugated bilirubin.
• Kernicterus is associated with increased unconjugated bilirubin.
Hepatocellular
Hepatocellular (hepatic) jaundice can be caused by acute or chronic hepatitis, hepatotoxicity, cirrhosis, drug induced hepatitis and alcoholic liver disease. Cell necrosis reduces the liver's ability to metabolize and excrete bilirubin leading to a buildup of unconjugated bilirubin in the blood.
Laboratory findings depend on the cause of jaundice.
• Urine: Conjugated bilirubin present, urobilirubin > 2 units but variable (except in children). Kernicterus is a condition not associated with increased conjugated bilirubin.
• Plasma protein show characteristic changes.
• Plasma albumin level is low but plasma globulins are raised due to an increased formation of antibodies.
Bilirubin transport across the hepatocyte may be impaired at any point between the uptake of unconjugated bilirubin into the cell and transport of conjugated bilirubin into biliary canaliculi.
Post-hepatic
Post-hepatic jaundice, also called obstructive jaundice, is caused by an interruption to the drainage of bile in the biliary system. The most common causes are gallstones in the common bile duct, and pancreatic cancer in the head of the pancreas. Also, a group of parasites known as "liver flukes" can live in the common bile duct, causing obstructive jaundice. Other causes include strictures of the common bile duct, biliary atresia, cholangiocarcinoma, pancreatitis and pancreatic pseudocysts. A rare cause of obstructive jaundice is Mirizzi's syndrome.
Pathophysiology
When RBCs are damaged, their membranes become fragile and prone to rupture. As each RBC traverses through the reticuloendothelial system, its cell membrane ruptures when its membrane is fragile enough to allow this.
Hemoglobin, are released into the blood. The hemoglobin is phagocytosed by macrophages, and split into its heme and globin portions. The globin portion, a protein, is degraded into amino acids and plays no role in jaundice.
Two reactions then take place with the heme molecule.
The first oxidation reaction is catalyzed by the microsomal enzyme heme oxygenase and results in biliverdin (green color pigment), iron
and carbon monoxide.
The next step is the reduction of biliverdin to a yellow color tetrapyrol pigment called bilirubin by cytosolic enzyme biliverdin reductase.
This bilirubin is "unconjugated," "free" or "indirect" bilirubin. Approximately 4 mg of bilirubin per kg of blood is produced each day.[11] The majority of this bilirubin comes from the breakdown of heme from expired red blood cells in the process just described.
However approximately 20 percent comes from other heme sources, including ineffective erythropoiesis, and the breakdown of other heme-containing proteins, such as muscle myoglobin and cytochromes.
Hepatic events
The unconjugated bilirubin then travels to the liver through the bloodstream. Because bilirubin is not soluble, however, it is transported through the blood bound to serum albumin.
In Liver, it is conjugated with glucuronic acid (to form bilirubin diglucuronide, or just "conjugated bilirubin") to become more water soluble.
The reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme UDP-glucuronyl transferase.
This conjugated bilirubin is excreted from the liver into the biliary and cystic ducts as part of bile. Intestinal bacteria convert the bilirubin into urobilinogen.
Urobilinogen can take two pathways. It can either be further converted into stercobilinogen, which is then oxidized to stercobilin and passed out in the feces, or it can be reabsorbed by the intestinal cells, transported in the blood to the kidneys, and passed out in the urine as the oxidised product urobilin.
Stercobilin and urobilin are the products responsible for the coloration of feces and urine, respectively.
Characteristics of Immunoglobulin subclasses
I. Ig G:
(i) Predominant portion (80%) of Ig.
(ii) Molecular weight 150, 000
(iii) Sedimentation coefficient of 7S.
(iv) Crosses placental barrier and to extra cellular fluid.
- (v) Mostly neutralising effect. May be complement fixing.
(vi) Half life of 23 days.
2.IgM :
(i) Pentamer of Ig.
(ii) Molecular weight 900, 000
(iii) 19S.
(iv) More effective complement fixation and cells lysis
(v) Earliest to be produced in infections.
(vi) Does not cross placental barrier.
(vii) Halflife of 5 days.
3. Ig A :
- Secretory antibody. Found in intestinal, respiratory secretions tears, saliva and urine also.
- Secreted usually as a dinner with secretory piece.
- Mol. weight variable (160,000+)
- 7 S to 14 S.
- Half life of 6 days.
4.Ig D :
- Found in traces.
- 7 S.
- Does not cross placenta.
5. Ig E
- Normally not traceable
- 7-8 S (MoL weight 200,000)
- Cytophilic antibody, responsible for some hypersensitivity states,