Brandon, a 25-year-old graduate student, has recently been suffering from abdomi
ID: 260632 • Letter: B
Question
Brandon, a 25-year-old graduate student, has recently been suffering from abdominal pain, and nausea recently. He brushes it off, thinking it’s from the stress of his research and studying for exams. For a couple of days after his second round of exams the pain starts to subside, so he again believes it was due to the stress.
The pain comes back, along with blood in the stool now. Brandon becomes worried, for fear it may be something severe like colon cancer, so he makes an appointment immediately. After taking the patient’s history along with running several tests, the doctor believes it isn’t severe as colon cancer, but that Brandon is suffering from peptic ulcers. He prescribes Brandon medication, and tells him that he should be seeing the effects of the medication soon.
On average, there are 625,000 cases reported each year.
1) What is the organism that causes peptic ulcers?
2)What morphology would be seen under the microscope?
3)Although rare, this condition may lead to a more severe disorder, what is the disorder?
4) What types of medication would the doctor prescribe to Brandon?
5) What is the mode of transmission for this bacterium?
6) What are the virulence factors for this bacterium?
7)What specific structures of the digestive system are infected?
8)Why was Brandon seeing blood in his stool?
9) What specific test is used to identify this bacterium?
10)What is the prevalence of this disease each year? (Assume a population of 32,000,000 and express as a percentage
Explanation / Answer
1) The organism that causes pepytic ulcers is Helicobacter pylori
2) H.pylori is a Gram negative curved or spiral rod shaped bacterium. It is motile and possesses 4-6 flagella at the same location.
3) stomach cancer
4) The first line of treatment for peptic ulcers is the combination of proton pump inhibitors along with antibiotics like clarithromycin and amoxycillin. Proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole, pantoprazole and rabeprazol may be used.
5) H.pylori can be transmitted from person to person by saliva. This bacteria can also be transmitted by fecal contamination of food or water.