Streptococcus and Streptococcal Toxins
Dongyou Liu in Handbook of Foodborne Diseases, 2018
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis, though each of these diseases is also caused by other organisms. In the developed countries, severe disease occurs mainly in children below 2 years of age and in the elderly. Signs and symptoms of pneumonia may include chest pain during breathing or coughing, which may produce phlegm, fatigue, fever, sweating, shaking chills, low body temperature (in adults older than age 65 and person with weak immune systems), nausea, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. Along with these clinical manifestations, S. pneumoniae infection can also spread and then manifest as otitis media, sinusitis, trachea-bronchitis, and bronchitis. The viridans group of streptococci has been reported mostly in the immune incompetent hosts and has been categorized as less virulent bacteria [25]. Once they colonize the immunocompromised patients, they present with bloodstream infections along with frequent risk factors, such as endocarditis, toxic shock–like syndromes, adult respiratory distress syndrome, severe neutropenia, and oropharyngeal mucositis [26] (Table 21.1).
Overview of Human Upper and Lower Respiratory Tract Viral Infections
Sunit K. Singh in Human Respiratory Viral Infections, 2014
In infancy, there is a relatively high incidence of pneumonia, which decreases toward adulthood, but increases again in the elderly with progressing age.32,64 Both viruses and bacteria are known causes of pneumonia.65 Signs and symptoms of pneumonia include fever, coughing, sputum production, pleuritic chest pain, dyspnea, and malaise, and coarse crackles can be heard upon auscultation.32,66 A chest x-ray may confirm the diagnosis by revealing consolidations. However, viral or bacterial infection cannot be differentiated based on the radiologic findings. In addition, early in the course of pneumonia, a chest x-ray may reveal no abnormalities at all.67 Hospitalization may be necessary and viral and bacterial testing should be considered to identify the causative agent, and to help in choosing the appropriate treatment.35,67,68 All previously mentioned viral pathogens may be associated with viral pneumonia, although especially influenza viruses, RSV, HMPV, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and hantavirus may be implicated.69
Efficient Diagnosis using Chest CT in COVID-19: A Review
S. Prabha, P. Karthikeyan, K. Kamalanand, N. Selvaganesan in Computational Modelling and Imaging for SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, 2021
Several screening methods are followed in the detection of SARS-Cov-2. RT-PCR test is a standard diagnostic procedure recommended for all infected patients involving a sample of nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab. This method has limitations, including accessibility and availability (Xie et al. 2020). Sometimes the sensitivity of RT-PCR becomes as low as 60%–70%, and can show negative results. In that case, symptoms of pneumonia are detected by investigating radiological images (Kanne et al. 2020). Other methods, such as serological tests based on immunoglobulin M (IgM)/IgG antibody detection, which includes ELISA tests and rapid chromatographic tests, are also adopted in COVID-19 detection. Advantages of these tests are rapid results, high sensitivity (~89%) and specificity (~93%), easy accessibility and fast screening for COVID-19 infections (Neelesh et al. 2020).
Emerging strategies in nanotechnology to treat respiratory tract infections: realizing current trends for future clinical perspectives
Published in Drug Delivery, 2022
Minhua Chen, Zhangxuan Shou, Xue Jin, Yingjun Chen
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lungs which affect primarily lung air sacs (alveoli). Alveolar spaces are occupied by pus and fluid which distress breathing and confine oxygen uptake. The lesions appear inside alveoli, often associated with buds of granulation tissue that inhibit the bronchiolar lumen resulting in lung abrasions (Al-Tubaikh, 2010). Many etiological agents are accountable for pneumonia including pathogenic bacteria; S. pneumoniae, H. influenzae, S. aureus, gram-negative bacilli, M. pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanni, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, and opportunistic fungi that reach alveoli by micro aspiration of oropharynges secretion (Sanivarapu & Gibson, 2021). Certain viruses, i.e. coronavirus, adenoviruses, influenza virus, and respiratory syncytial viruses are also responsible for the spread of viral pneumonia (Muhammad et al., 2022). The therapy is initiated after the conformation of an etiological agent and the severity of the disease then the treatment starts in a rational way to treat the development of these resistant strains. However, the current treatment of pneumonia is ineffective due to adverse toxic effects related to antibiotics (vancomycin) and inefficient effects against multidrug resistance (B. Kim et al., 2018). Therefore, nanotechnology is an emerging technique to overcome hurdles in this regulatory fatal infection (Figure 2).
Protective effects of Re-yan-ning mixture on Streptococcus pneumonia in rats based on network pharmacology
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2021
Lizhu Han, Jing Kou, Kunxia Hu, Yunlan Wang, Zhishu Tang, Zhisheng Wu, Xiao Song
Pneumonia refers to inflammation of the terminal airway, alveolar and interstitial lung, and can be caused by pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, atypical pathogens and the inhalation of foreign bodies (Ho and Ip 2019; McLaughlin et al. 2019). Bacterial pneumonia is the most common form of pneumonia and one of the most common infectious diseases (Voiriot et al. 2019). Before the use of antibiotics, bacterial pneumonia posed a great threat to the health of children and the elderly. However, in recent years, despite the use of powerful antibiotics and effective vaccines, the overall mortality rate of pneumonia has not changed. Streptococcus pneumonia is a Gram positive bacterium, usually located in the nasopharyngeal cavity of healthy people. It may cause disease when immunity declines, especially in children <5 years old and in those ≥60 years (Poole and Clark 2020). Streptococcus pneumonia is the main cause of bacterial pneumonia and meningitis worldwide, which can lead to bacteraemia, acute otitis media, bronchitis and other diseases. Pneumococcal infection can be treated with penicillin, cephalosporin, etc. Chinese Streptococcus pneumonia is highly resistant to macrolide antibacterial drugs. Clinical data from Wuhan Hospital in China showed that the resistance rate of Streptococcus pneumonia to clindamycin was 98.28%, and the resistance rate to erythromycin was 97.41% (Jing et al. 2019). It has high sensitivity to ertapenem, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, ofloxacin, telithromycin and cefotaxime (Xuan et al. 2019).
Arid2-IR downregulates miR-132-3p through methylation to promote LPS-induced ALI in pneumonia
Published in Inhalation Toxicology, 2022
Yuanshui Liu, Chuanyu Bao, Gongping Deng, Yanhong Ouyang
Pneumonia is the swelling of lung tissues that causes accumulation of pus and fluid in alveoli, which is responsible for blood exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide (Mandell and Niederman 2019). Pneumonia can be caused by any forms of infection of bacteria, viruses, and fungi (Cillóniz et al. 2019; Rawson et al. 2020; Shi, Han et al. 2020). Without proper treatment, pneumonia may cause painful breathing and reduced oxygen intake (Ebell et al. 2020). In effect, pneumonia is responsible for more than 22% of deaths in children ages 1–5 years old (Howie and Murdoch 2019). For patients who recovered from pneumonia, pathological changes in lungs are usually irreversible, leading to reduced life quality (Quinton et al. 2018). At present, the treatment of this disease mainly includes antibiotics, rest, and fluid intake (Vaughn et al. 2019). However, adverse events may happen and death in many cases is inevitable.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Chest Pain
- Chest Radiograph
- Inflammation
- Shortness of Breath
- Lung
- Sputum
- Pulmonary Alveolus
- Phlegm
- Shortness of Breath
- Physical Examination
- Microbiological Culture