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submitted: Apr 7th 2008 | by: ElizabethCampbell | Total views: 4 | Word Count: 523 | |

You may know that syphilis is a disease, which can be transmitted by sexual contact in almost all cases. It is an infectious disease, contagious, whose evolution is chronic, intermittent. It is transmitted through genital contact, very rarely via other means and it can affect any tissue or organ.

The stage where the spirochete starts to invade the body is called primary syphilis. It starts where the infectious lesion had a direct contact, most likely in the penis, the labia and the uterine cervix. It can be observed from the medical history that first contact with an infected person would have been a week to 2 months ago. The characteristic lesion is typified by a chancre, the point of first exposure.

It will take an average of 21 days for the spirochete to develop, depending on different factors. The chancre starts to erode slightly and quickly develops into a painless surface wound. Inflammation of regional ganglions will be noticed though it will be isolated, mobile, and also painless.

Secondary syphilis is the period where the infection starts to spread, appearing after 7-10 weeks from first exposure and 2-3 weeks after the primary infection, wherein the microbes migrate from the ganglions in great numbers. There will be a resulting second incubation until skin ulcerations come out within 45 days from appearance of first signs and 60-70 days from first contact with infection.

The infection will sometimes cause fever. Any part of the body tissue can be affected and injured. In general, the lesions will develop in the teguments and mucous membranes. The lesions will appear like rashes caused by a viral disease, however lesions will be pustule-like elements.

Recurrent syphilis occurs after insufficient or incorrect treatment. In this case, secondary syphilis can emerge again (in 3 to 9 months after treatment). Relapses can be only serologic, without any clinical manifestations. If clinical manifestations still occur, they can be skin and mucous membranes lesions, neurological symptoms, sore eyes, bones affections or visceral ones.

Latent syphilis represents a calm stage from clinical point of view, between secondary lesions resorption and tertiary symptoms emergence.

During this stage, there is serologic evidence of syphilis infection; the LCR exam is negative; other exams such as ECG and radiological exam will show lesions of the cardiovascular organs.

Tertiary syphilis or the third stage can occur even after years of latency. Late lesions represent probably an allergic reaction of tissues at Treponema Pallidum and it can affect tissues like skin and mucous membranes. In this case, on the skin can occur tubercles formations, tubercles and ulcerate as well as nodules. On the other hand, mucous membranes can present tubercles and ulcerate lesions.

Congenital syphilis can be transmitted nowadays from mother to fetus, via fetus placenta flow, therefore during the baby's intrauterine life. It cannot be transmitted from the father if the mother is healthy.

If the baby has the precocious congenital syphilis type, it will develop symptoms as soon as the baby is born or two years after. Blisters and sometimes ulcerations will be the indications.

Late congenital syphilis sets off after two years from birth and the lesions that will appear denote that the disease is already in its third stage.

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