Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis
Tropical sprue Microchapters |
Diagnosis |
---|
Treatment |
Case Studies |
Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis On the Web |
American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis |
FDA on Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis |
CDC on Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis |
Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis in the news |
Blogs on Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis |
Risk calculators and risk factors for Tropical sprue natural history, complications and prognosis |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief:
Please help WikiDoc by adding more content here. It's easy! Click here to learn about editing.
Overview
Natural History
- The clinical presentation depends on the duration of illness.
- Some patients may have symptoms lasting for days to weeks while other have a chronic course with remissions and relapses for many years.
- Malabsorption, may be seen as early as week after the onset of symptoms but manifestations of specific vitamin deficiencies may take longer.
- With no treatment, mortality in an epidemic reaches 30%.
- During the early stages of the illness, the mortality is mainly related to the fluid and electrolyte imbalances.
- Later in the disease deaths are associated with anemia, hypoproteinemia and secondary infection.
- Among the patients who survive, there is a strong tendency to spontaneous recovery even without treatment.
Complications
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are common complications.
In children, sprue leads to:
- Delay in the maturing of bones (skeletal maturation)
- Growth
Prognosis
The prognosis for tropical sprue is excellent. It usually does not recur in patients who get it during travel to affected regions. The recurrence rate for natives is about 20%.