USMLE Step 1 QUESTION of the DAY!

An 8 month-old boy is brought to your office for yet another ear infection. The patient has had a history of thrombocytopenia and eczema. This boy most likely has what?

A) Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
B) DiGeorge syndrome
C) Severe combined immunodeficiency
D) Job’s syndrome
E) A plasma cell abnormality

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Answer: A) Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome is an X-linked recessive disease. It is a congenital combined T- and B-cell deficiency characterized by recurrent infections, thrombocytopenia, and eczema. C) SCID is also a combined T- and B-cell deficiency, DiGeorge syndrome is a T-cell deficiency, and Job’s syndrome is a phagocyte disorder which also is associated with eczema.




USMLE Step 1 D.O.C. of the DAY!

Drug of choice for

Campylobacter causing acute inflammatory diarrhea

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Ciprofloxacin



FACT of the DAY!

Bacterial cystitis:
- dysuria (painful and burning urination), urgency, frequency
- more common in females due to short urethra
- affects males >70 due to prostatitis, very young male = congenital anomaly
- Bacteria count > 100,000 + infection but lower if pregnant or young child
- Also + nitrate reduction test w/ pyuria w/ + esterase study (PMN’s); Coliform bacilli most common invaders
- Brunn’s nests-tiny invaginations that expand w/ cystitis called goblet cell metaplasia- “cystitis glandularis” or when extreme “cystitis cystica”
- Mucosa is slightly elevated w/ scattered inflammatory cells- sometimes so intense lymphoid follicles develop