Mononucleosis Essay

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Mononucleosis

Mononucleosis is a disease caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is a member of the herpes family. The herpes family also includes viruses that cause cold sores, chicken pox, genital herpes, and birth defects (7). Mono, short for mononucleosis (3) "gets its name from the fact that it causes a person's white blood cells to become distorted, so that they have only one nucleus (becoming mononuclear) instead of the usual divided nucleus.'; (3)

The first accounts of mono are credited to Filatov and Pfeiffer who around the end of the nineteenth century described and illness known as Drusenfieber or glandular fever which occurred in family outbreaks. However, the establishment of mono is given to Sprunt and Evans. In …show more content…

"The lymph system carries foreign invaders like EBV to special tissues where disease-fighting white blood cells called lymphocytes spring into action.'; (7) However EBV only infects the B cells that produce antibodies. During mono one out of every ten B cells becomes "atypical.'; The T cells in the body then go find the B cells infected and that is what makes the body feel fatigued and sick is when it is fighting its own cells. The lymph nodes where the body is attacking itself, such as the tonsils become inflamed, causing symptoms such as a sore throat. Eventually the T cells have done their job and the body is back under control, but there are still infected cells causing mono to relapse and take a long time to recover from. However, it is very unusually for mono to occur more than once in a person's lifetime. …show more content…

Burkitt's lymphoma patients usually have high antibodies of EBV (6). This disease involves tumors in the throat and jaw area due to EBV (6). There are also traces of EBV genome in specimens from nasopharyngeal carcinoma (6). Nasopharynegeal carcinoma is cancer of the nose and throat and EBV is found in almost all of the tumors (7). Hodgkin's disease is possibly linked with EBV because of the swelling of lymph nodes in the neck, armpits, or groin, and similar symptoms of mono (7). EBV could be linked with Sjogren's syndrome, which is a chronic autoimmune disease where the body attacks its own tissues (7). EBV could be involved because an EBV infection of the salivary glands activates the T cells to the infected cells and to other glandular cells (7). Although EBV is linked to many other diseases and could cause cancer, there is no evidence that everyone with EBV antibodies is going to get cancer or another deadly disease

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