Whipple's disease overview
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Sadaf Sharfaei M.D.[2]
Overview
Whipple's disease is a rare, systemic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Tropheryma whipplei.[1] Whipple's disease primarily causes malabsorption but may affect any part of the body including the heart, lungs, brain, joints, and eyes.
Historical Perspective
Whipple described the disease for the first time in 1907 as a gastrointestinal disorder and named it as "intestinal lipodystrophy." Light and electron microscopy on small bowel biopsy were used to detect bacilli inside the intestinal mucosa. In 1952, systemic antibiotics were used to treat the disease which confirmed the infective nature of the disease. It took almost 100 years for investigators to cultivate the bacterium and sequenced the genome.
Classification
Whipple’s disease may be classified into 2 groups of acute and chronic infection. It might be classified as systemic or localized based on the organ involvement. It has 4 different clinical manifestations: Acute infection, asymptomatic carrier state, the classic Whipple’s disease, and localized chronic infection.