Question

Please write in complete sentences. List the disease symptoms and virulence factors associated with Pseudomonas infections. Why can Pseudomonas be difficult to .control in a hospital environment?

Answer 1

Answer:

• Pseudomonas causes bloodstream infections, respiratory tract infection, heart infection, infections in the central nervous system (CNS), heart inflammation, bone infection, eye infection, urinary tract infections (UTI) and skin infections.

1. Bloodstream infections:

• Called as bacteraemia. Blood is a highly nutritious fluid.
• Once the organism finds ways to evade the immune system, it grows and multiplies in the blood, which leads to fever, haemolysis (blood cell lysis), cellulitis (tissue damage, when it starts to invade tissues) which leads to death if left untreated.

2. Respiratory tract infection:

• The most common is the lower respiratory tract infection in Cystic Fibrosis patients.
• Symptoms include excessive coughing, sputum production, fever, and chilling, breathing difficulty.

3. Heart infection:

• Pseudomonas infects heart, causing inflammation in the inner face of heart (endocarditis).
• Symptoms include fever, weight-loss, and weakness.
• If left untreated, it leads to heart murmur and cardiac failure, which may prove fatal.

4. CNS infection:

• When it crosses the blood - brain barrier, it reaches the brain, where it cause inflammation in meninges (meningitis).
• Symptoms include fever, unconsciousness, headache, vomiting, and stroke. It often proves fatal.

5. Bone infection:

• The organism causes inflammation in bones and the bone marrow (osteomyelitis).
• Causes are bone injury, bacterial invasion from blood infection, prosthetics and infected implants. Symptoms include swelling, pain, and pus formation.
• This is difficult to treat, as it often becomes chronic and persistent infection.

6. Eye infection:

• Pseudomonas causes infection in the eye that leads to inflammations in the cornea (keratitis).
• Symptoms include pain, swelling and irritation, may lead to blindness

7. UTI:

• UTI from Pseudomonas is mostly due to contaminated urinary catheters, which leads to inflammations in lower urinary tract.
• Symptoms include pain during urination, secondary infections in kidney, bloody urine discharge.
• In hospital settings, due to constant expossures to antibiotics, they attain antibiotic resistance.
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa is among the most isolated organisms in hospitalized patients.
• Most of them are multidrug resistant. Extremely drug resistant and pan-drug resistant isolates are also being increasingly isolated these days.
• Pseudomonas are also good biofilm producers. Biofilm is a community of metabolically dormant cells held together an extracellular matrix.
• Biofilm is mechanically resistant to almost all chemical reagents, including antibiotics, disinfectants and antibodies.
• This property of bacteria is a virulence factor and helps it survive the harshest environments.

Due to the menace due to antibiotic resistance and biofilm production, Pseudomonas is difficult to control in a hospital environment.

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