Answer to Case 710
Answer to the Parasite Case of the Week 710:Trypanosoma cruziamastigotes forming a pseudocyst in cardiac muscle. Note that you can make out the nucleus and kinetoplast of some of the amastigotes:While I posted this on Valentine ' s day, Chagas disease is actually a story of heartbreak. Here is a rather poignant poem aboutTrypanosoma cruzi by @DrCindyCooper:Fortunately treatment can be effective when the disease is caught early. April 14th is World Chagas Disease day, where the WHO and partners raise awareness pf this " silent disease " that affects mainly poor people with limited access to health care. (Source: ...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - February 12, 2023 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
MobilTEK Launches First International Telehealth Program
The following is a guest article by Sara Hendren, Global Telehealth Lead at MobilTeK by Care on Location.
MobilTEK, launched its first international telehealth program in the department of Chuquisaca Bolivia in March of 2022. Through a collaborative partnership with Alliance Bolivia, PROCOSI, and SEDES Chuquisaca, two MobilTEK telehealth exam kits were placed in the communities of Zudanez and El Villar through a pilot program that will study the acceptability, useability, and adaptability of telehealth technology in relation to the current flow of patient care and to address the distance gap between specialist and patien...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - November 11, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Ambulatory Health IT Company Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring Alliance Bolivia Care on Location Chagas Disease Chuquisaca Bolivia El Villar MobilTEK MobilTEK Telehealth Kit PROCOSI Rural Communities Sara Hendren Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 658
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 658:Trypanosoma bruceiGiven the travel history and rapid onset of symptoms,T. b. rhodesienseis the most likely parasite present. This case shows very high parasitemia with numerous trypomastigotes seen on the patient ' s thick blood film. Here is the corresponding thin blood film, highlighting some of the key diagnostic features:Note that the motile flagellate form (i.e., the trypomastigote) ofT. bruceidivides by binary fission in the peripheral blood. This is in contrast toTrypanosoma cruzi,the cause of American trypanosomiasis (a.k.a. Chagas disease), in which it is the non-motile t...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - October 24, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 555 - Parasites and the Number Five
Wow - we received so many excellent comments on how parasites and the number 5 go together! Here are many of them - in no particular order - for your viewing pleasure:Pentatrichomonas hominis is a nonpathogenic intestinal flagellate named for its 5 flagella (penta from the Greek pente, meaning five + trich, pertaining to hair [flagella]). By Neil Anderson and Bernardino Rocha.There are 5 lobes of the lung, and all can be infected by Paragonimusspecies. By Brian Duresko.The are 5Plasmodiumspecies that are responsible for the bulk of malaria in humans:P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, andP. knowlesi(t...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - August 1, 2019 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 533
Answer toCase of the Week 533:The vector: Triatomine bugs (also called reduviid bugs, “kissing” bugs, and cone-nosed bugs).The pathogen:Trypanosoma cruziResultant disease: Chagas disease, a.k.a. American trypanosomiasisThank you all for the great comments! Hopefully we will see more cases from the Achee/Grieco lab in the future. (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - February 24, 2019 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Chagas Disease: DAMS Unplugged
Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by the protist Trypanosoma cruzi. It is spread mostly by insects known as Triatominae, or "kissing bugs". Presenting an integrated approach to the disease.Famous Radiology Blog http://www.sumerdoc.blogspot.com
TeleRad Providers at www.teleradproviders.com Mail us at sales@teleradproviders.com (Source: Sumer's Radiology Site)
Source: Sumer's Radiology Site - November 10, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Sumer Sethi Source Type: blogs
Infection without Disease (from Precision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease)
A prior post listed 7 assertions regarding the role of infectious organisms on the human genome. In the next few blogs we ' ll look at each assertion, in excerpts fromPrecision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease. Here ' s the fifth:Normal defenses can block every infectious disease. Hence, every infectious disease results from a failure of our normal defenses, immunologic and otherwise. For any given infectious agent, no matter how virulent they may seem, there are always individuals who can resist infection. Moreover, as a generalization, the majority of individuals who are infected with a pathogenic microorgan...
Source: Specified Life - February 12, 2018 Category: Information Technology Tags: commensals host organisms latent infection precision medicine symbiotes symbiotic Source Type: blogs
Precision Medicine and Public Health (from Precision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease)
Excerpted fromPrecision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human DiseaseDespite having the most advanced healthcare technology on the planet, life expectancy in the United States is not particularly high. Citizens from most of the European countries and the highly industrialized Asian countries enjoy longer life expectancies than the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 31st among nations, trailing behind Greece, Chile, and Costa Rica, and barely edging out Cuba [42]. Similar rankings are reported by the US Central Intelligence Agency [43]. These findings lead us to infer that acc...
Source: Specified Life - February 6, 2018 Category: Information Technology Tags: cancer cancer vaccines precision medicine prevention public health Source Type: blogs
Indications for epicardial mapping of ventricular tachycardia (VT)
When do you consider epicardial mapping for ventricular tachycardia (VT)?
Mapping and ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) is usually done from the endocardial approach except in the following specific situations:
VT in structural heart diseases with a propensity for an epicardial substrate like Chagas disease and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC/ARVD)
Hyperenhancement seen in the epicardial region on contrast enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging
Endocardial mapping fails to identify an endocardial scar
Electrocardiographic features of clinical or induced VT indicating an epicardia...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 1, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiology ECG / Electrophysiology arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy ARVC ARVD Chagas disease Source Type: blogs
Are Priority Review Vouchers The Answer To Incentivize Drug Development? Not So Fast.
In the May issue of Health Affairs, two papers examine the potential for voucher systems to incentivize drug development in areas of unmet medical need. Co-authors Kevin Outterson and Anthony McDonnell take a look at potential exclusivity voucher programs designed to encourage development of new antibiotics, while David Ridley and Stephane Régnier analyze the effects that expansion of existing priority review voucher (PRV) programs may have on the value of PRVs as a development incentive.
Ridley and Régnier’s work is of particular importance as both houses of Congress pursue a spate of legislative proposals that do mak...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Pranav Aurora, Morgan Romine and Gregory Daniel Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Global Health Health Professionals Quality FDA FDAAA priority review rare diseases Source Type: blogs
KaloBios bows to the price pressure Gods (I ’ m quoted)
Pharma bad boy Martin Shkreli, formerly CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals put the company in an uncomfortable spot with plans to jack the price of a drug for Chagas disease.
Today Fierce PharmaMarketing features me in its story explaining what’s going on at KaloBios and the implications for the broader industry. (In Shkreli’s aftermath, KaloBios vows fair pricing. Will others follow its lead?)
The company has really abased itself, essentially putting forward a plan to act like a non-profit. The industry as a whole won’t be following that maneuver! In the story I share my view that pharma has boxed itself i...
Source: Health Business Blog - April 13, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Pharma Policy and politics Source Type: blogs
KaloBios bows to the price pressure Gods (I’m quoted)
Pharma bad boy Martin Shkreli, formerly CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals put the company in an uncomfortable spot with plans to jack the price of a drug for Chagas disease.
Today Fierce PharmaMarketing features me in its story explaining what’s going on at KaloBios and the implications for the broader industry. (In Shkreli’s aftermath, KaloBios vows fair pricing. Will others follow its lead?)
The company has really abased itself, essentially putting forward a plan to act like a non-profit. The industry as a whole won’t be following that maneuver! In the story I share my view that pharma has boxed itself i...
Source: Health Business Blog - April 13, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Pharma Policy and politics Source Type: blogs
Was Martin Shkreli Arrested For Hiking Drug Prices?
By SAURABH JHA, MD
I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. I never believed a second shot was fired. Nor do I believe that Bill Clinton was stalked on the grassy knoll. So I won’t speculate that Martin Shkreli’s arrest for alleged securities fraud that happened years ago is related to his raising Daraprim’s price by 5500 %.
Just because something isn’t suspicious doesn’t mean that it isn’t odd.
Shkreli is a perfect poster child for rapacious pharmacocapitalism – so perfect that it’s odd. He openly admits “I have a sworn duty to my shareholders to maximize profit.” Shkreli’s admission is odd not f...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 22, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Saurabh Jha Source Type: blogs
