NEET MDS Lessons
General Pathology
Glycogen storage diseases (glycogenoses)
1. Genetic transmission: autosomal recessive.
2. This group of diseases is characterized by a deficiency of a particular enzyme involved in either glycogen production or degradative pathways.
Diseases include:
on Gierke disease (type I)
(a) Deficient enzyme: glucose-6-phosphatase.
(b) Major organ affected by the buildup of glycogen: liver.
Pompe disease (type II)
(1) Deficient enzyme: α-glucosidase(acid maltase).
(2) Major organ affected by the buildup of glycogen: heart.
Cori disease (type III)
(1) Deficient enzyme: debranching enzyme (amylo-1,6-glucosidase).
(2) Organs affected by the buildup of glycogen: varies between the heart, liver, or skeletal muscle.
Brancher glycogenosis (type IV)
(1) Deficient enzyme: branching enzyme.
(2) Organs affected by the buildup of glycogen: liver, heart, skeletal muscle, and brain.
McArdle syndrome (type V)
(1) Deficient enzyme: muscle phosphorylase.
(2) Major organ affected by the buildup of glycogen: skeletal muscle.
Lysosomal (lipid) storage diseases
- Genetic transmission: autosomal recessive.
- This group of diseases is characterized by a deficiency of a particular lysosomal enzyme. This results in an accumulation of the metabolite, which would have otherwise been degraded by the presence of normal levels of this specific enzyme.
Diseases include:
Gaucher’s disease
(1) Deficient enzyme: glucocerebrosidase.
(2) Metabolite that accumulates: glucocerebroside.
(3) Important cells affected: macrophages.
Tay-Sachs disease
(1) Deficient enzyme: hexosaminidase A.
(2) Metabolite that accumulates: GM2 ganglioside.
(3) Important cells affected: neurons.
(4) Symptoms include motor and mental deterioration, blindness, and dementia.
(5) Common in the Ashkenazi Jews.
Niemann-Pick disease
(1) Deficient enzyme: sphingomyelinase.
(2) Metabolite that accumulates: sphingomyelin.
(3) Important cells affected: neurons.
INFARCTION
Definition : a localized area of ischaemic necrosis in an organ infarcts may be:
Pale :as in
→ Arterial obstruction.
→ solid organs.
Red as in
→ Venous occlusion
→ Loose tissue.
Morphology
Gross: infarcts are usually wedge shaped the apex towards the occluded vessel They are
separated from the surrounding tissue by an hyperemic inflammatory zone
Microscopic:
- An area of coagulative necrosis with a rim of congested vessels and acute inflammatory infiltration of the tissue .
- The polymorphs ale later replaced by mononuclear cells and granulation tissue.
- With time, scar tissue replaces necrosed tissue.
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.
TUBERCULOSIS
A chronic, recurrent infection, most commonly in the lungs
Etiology, Epidemiology, and Incidence
TB refers only to disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. bovis, or M. africanum. Other mycobacteria cause diseases similar to TB
Pathogenesis
The stages of TB are primary or initial infection, latent or dormant infection, and recrudescent or adult-type TB.
Primary TB may become active at any age, producing clinical TB in any organ, most often the apical area of the lung but also the kidney, long bones, vertebrae, lymph nodes, and other sites. Often, activation occurs within 1 to 2 yr of initial infection, but may be delayed years or decades and activate after onset of diabetes mellitus, during periods of stress, after treatment with corticosteroids or other immunosuppressants, in adolescence, or in later life (> 70 yr of age), but especially after HIV infection. The initial infection leaves nodular scars in the apices of one or both lungs, called Simon foci, which are the most common seeds for later active TB. The frequency of activation seems unaffected by calcified scars of primary infection (Ghon foci) or by residual calcified hilar lymph nodes. Subtotal gastrectomy and silicosis also predispose to development of active TB.
Pulmonary Tuberculosis
recrudescent disease occurs in nodular scars in the apex of one or both lungs (Simon foci) and may spread through the bronchi to other portions
Recrudescence may occur while a primary focus of TB is still healing but is more often delayed until some other disease facilitates reactivation of the infection.
In an immunocompetent person whose tuberculin test is positive (>= 10 mm), exposure to TB rarely results in a new infection, because T-lymphocyte immunity controls small, exogenous inocula promptly and completely.
Symptoms and Signs:
Cough is the most common symptom,
At first, it is minimally productive of yellow or green mucus, usually on rising in the morning, but becomes more productive as the disease progresses
Dyspnea may result from rupture of the lung or from a pleural effusion caused by a vigorous inflammatory reaction
Hilar lymphadenopathy is the most common finding in children. due to lymphatic drainage from a small lesion, usually located in the best ventilated portions of the lung (lower and middle lobes), where most of the inhaled organisms are carried.
swelling of the nodes is common
Untreated infection may progress to miliary TB or tuberculous meningitis and, if long neglected, rarely may lead to pulmonary cavitation.
TB in the elderly presents special problems. Long-dormant infection may reactivate, most commonly in the lung but sometimes in the brain or a kidney, long bone, vertebra, lymph node, or anywhere that bacilli were seeded during the primary infection earlier in life
TB may develop when infection in an old calcific lymph node reactivates and leaks caseous material into a lobar or segmental bronchus, causing a pneumonia that persists despite broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy.
With HIV infection, progression to clinical TB is much more common and rapid.
HIV also reduces both inflammatory reaction and cavitation of pulmonary lesions. As a result, a patient's chest x-ray may be normal, even though AFB are present in sufficient numbers to show on a sputum smear. Recrudescent TB is almost always indicated when such an infection develops while the CD4+ T-lymphocyte count is >= 200/µL. By contrast, the diagnosis is usually infection by M. avium-intracellulare if the CD4+ count is < 50. The latter is noninfectious for others.
Pleural TB develops when a small subpleural pulmonary lesion ruptures, extruding caseous material into the pleural space. The most common type, serous exudate, results from rupture of a pimple-sized lesion of primary TB and contains very few organisms.
Tuberculous empyema with or without bronchopleural fistula is caused by a more massive contamination of the pleural space resulting from rupture of a large tuberculous lesion. Such a rupture allows air to escape and collapse the lung. Either type requires prompt drainage of pus and initiation of multiple drug therapy
Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis
Remote tuberculous lesions can be considered as metastases from the primary site in the lung, comparable to metastases from a primary neoplasm. TB of the tonsils, lymph nodes, abdominal organs, bones, and joints were once commonly caused by ingestion of milk infected with M. bovis.
GENITOURINARY TUBERCULOSIS
The kidney is one of the most common sites for extrapulmonary (metastatic) TB. Often after decades of dormancy, a small cortical focus may enlarge and destroy a large part of the renal parenchyma.
Salpingo-oophoritis can be a complication of primary TB after onset of menarche, when the fallopian tubes become vascular.
TUBERCULOUS MENINGITIS
Spread of TB to the subarachnoid space may occur as part of generalized dissemination through the bloodstream or from a superficial tubercle in the brain
Symptoms are fever (temperature rising to 38.3° C [101° F]), unremitting headache, nausea, and drowsiness, which may progress to stupor and coma. Stiff neck (Brudzinski's sign) and straight leg raising are inconstant but are helpful signs, if present. Stages of tuberculous meningitis are (1) clear sensorium with abnormal CSF, (2) drowsiness or stupor with focal neurologic signs, and (3) coma. Likelihood that CNS defects will become permanent increases with the stage. Symptoms may progress suddenly if the lesion causes thrombosis of a major cerebral vessel.
Diagnosis is made by examining CSF. The most helpful CSF findings include a glucose level < 1/2 that in the serum and an elevated protein level along with a pleocytosis, largely of lymphocytes. Examination of CSF by PCR is most helpful, rapid, and highly specific.
MILIARY TUBERCULOSIS
When a tuberculous lesion leaks into a blood vessel, massive dissemination of organisms may occur, causing millions of 1- to 3-mm metastatic lesions. Such spread, named miliary because the lesions resemble millet seeds, is most common in children < 4 yr and in the elderly.
TUBERCULOUS LYMPHADENITIS
In primary infection with M. tuberculosis, the infection spreads from the infected site in the lung to the hilar nodes. If the inoculum is not too large, other nodes generally are not involved. However, if the infection is not controlled, other nodes in the superior mediastinum may become involved. If organisms reach the thoracic duct, general dissemination may occur. From the supraclavicular area, nodes in the anterior cervical chain may be inoculated, thus sowing the seeds for tuberculous lymphadenitis at a later time. Most infected nodes heal, but the organisms may lie dormant and viable for years or decades and can again multiply and produce active disease.
Neutrophilia
Causes
-Pyogenic infections.
-Haemorrhage and trauma.
-Malignancies.
-Infarction.
-Myelo proliferative disorders.
Congenital heart defect
Congenital heart defects can be broadly categorised into two groups,
o acyanotic heart defects ('pink' babies) :
An acyanotic heart defect is any heart defect of a group of structural congenital heart defects, approximately 75% of all congenital heart defects.
It can be subdivided into two groups depending on whether there is shunting of the blood from the left vasculature to the right (left to right shunt) or no shunting at all.
Left to right shunting heart defects include
- ventricular septal defect or VSD (30% of all congenital heart defects),
- persistent ductus arteriosus or PDA,
- atrial septal defect or ASD,
- atrioventricular septal defect or AVSD.
Acyanotic heart defects without shunting include
- pulmonary stenosis, a narrowing of the pulmonary valve,
- aortic stenosis
- coarctation of the aorta.
cyanotic heart defects ('blue' babies).
obstructive heart defects
cyanotic heart defect is a group-type of congenital heart defect. These defects account for about 25% of all congenital heart defects. The patient appears blue, or cyanotic, due to deoxygenated blood in the systemic circulation. This occurs due to either a right to left or a bidirectional shunt, allowing significant proportions of the blood to bypass the pulmonary vascular bed; or lack of normal shunting, preventing oxygenated blood from exiting the cardiac-pulmonary system (as with transposition of the great arteries).
Defects in this group include
hypoplastic left heart syndrome,
tetralogy of Fallot,
transposition of the great arteries,
tricuspid atresia,
pulmonary atresia,
persistent truncus arteriosus.