What disease does this answer option correlate with?

[Duchenne's]

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Taken from a question stem:

"Which of the following lesions is most likely to be present in the central nervous system of the patient and his affected family members?"

Answer Choice (this option happened to be incorrect in this particular question):

"Microglial nodules and multinucleated giant cells in the white matter "

This is one of the answer options in a particular question. In this instance, it happens to be a "distractor", because the question stem was actually describing Huntington's dz. Does anyone know what this answer choice correlates with?

Is it SIV?

Thanks in advance!

 

[exmike]

Taken from a question stem:

"Which of the following lesions is most likely to be present in the central nervous system of the patient and his affected family members?"

Answer Choice (this option happened to be incorrect in this particular question):

"Microglial nodules and multinucleated giant cells in the white matter "

This is one of the answer options in a particular question. In this instance, it happens to be a "distractor", because the question stem was actually describing Huntington's dz. Does anyone know what this answer choice correlates with?

Is it SIV?

Thanks in advance!

Some sort of chronic and/or infectious process of the brain. My immediate reaction would be CNS TB. Maybe CNS sarcoidosis?

Les likely.. Perhaps toxoplasmosis? neurocystercercosis?

edit: since there is no lesion described, I would say viral encephalitis, probably HIV-related encephalitis

 

[nrosigh]

It's HIV in the brain.

 

[surgwannabe]

It's HIV in the brain.

nrosigh, a quick question for you. assuming the cd4 count is low in this hiv patient, what might be the stimulant which activates the monocyte to accumulate in the brain? any thought? thanks.

good luck on your exam.

 

[nrosigh]

Surg - great question, I really don't know what triggers it. I think that AIDS-dementia is caused by cytokines released by HIV-infected microglial cells. They may be in the brain the whole time during infection. When the viral loads gets very high, then the cytokines released by the infected cells damage neurons and probably myelin too.

AIDS-dementia is interesting because it is one of the few cases where the direct cytotoxic effects of the virus cause damage.

nrosigh, a quick question for you. assuming the cd4 count is low in this hiv patient, what might be the stimulant which activates the monocyte to accumulate in the brain? any thought? thanks.

good luck on your exam.