Real-Time PCR: An Essential Guide

Abstract

Focuses on the challenges of AIDS-related intestinal infections in the worldwide scenario. It fills a gap in the medical literature on the subject by providing the latest information and advances in the field along with an exhaustive series of light and electron microscopy micrographs and illustrations. It can serve as a reference book for problems arising in clinical and laboratory practice worldwide, and is a valuable textbook for clinicians, students, and AIDS care workers in industralized and developing countries alike. Introduction -- Intestinal parasitoses: a history of scientific progress and endemic disease in society -- Natural history of HIV infection -- Immunopathogenesis of AIDS -- Advances in the knowledge of HIV-related impairment of mucosal immunity -- Effects of HIV infection on gastrointestinal function -- Cryptosporidiosis, microsporidiosis, isosporiasis, cyclosporiasis, leishmaniasis, pneumocystosis and toxoplasmosis from animal to man: reservoirs and ways of transmission -- Introduction to mycobacterial taxonomy, structure, drug resistance, and pathogenesis -- Worldwide epidemiology and risk for international travelers -- Oral infections -- Gut infections: etiopathogenetic and clinical remarks -- Pathology -- Ultrastructural pathology -- Sonographic features of intestinal infections in AIDS -- Imaging of intestinal manifestations of AIDS -- Bacteria -- Mycobacteria -- Microsporidia -- Leishmania, cryptosporidium, amoebae, giardia, blastocystis -- Isospora belli and cyclospora cayetanensis -- Fungal infections of the gastrointestinal tract -- Strongyloides stercoralis -- Human herpesviruses -- Enteric viruses -- Latest advances and trends in PCR-based diagnostic methods -- Changing patterns of prophylaxis and treatment of bacterial and viral intestinal infections -- Treatment and prophylaxis of opportunistic parasitic intestinal infections in HIV-infected patients -- Parasites commonly associated with recognized agents of AIDS-related chronic diarrhea in developing countries -- Epidemiology and comprehensive management of HIV-related diarrhea in Africa -- Unique clinical problems in Latin America -- Gut infection in HIV: past, present and future.