Case Study: A 68-year-old male man named Edward went to the hospital for a routine gall bladder surgery. The surgery proceeded without complications. Due to Edwards age and his type II diabetes, he was admitted overnight for monitoring and discharged approximately 24 hours later. Edward returned to the hospital several days later with a cough resulting in chest pain, shortness of breath and a fever over 101 degrees. The attending doctor noticed the presence of small bloody chunks in his sputum and sent Edward for a chest X-ray. The X-ray results showed lung infiltrate with the presence of a bulging fissure. The sputum sample was then sent off for Gram stain analysis which showed a large presence of a Gram-negative bacillus-shaped microorganisms.
Based on the information presented in the case study, answer the following questions in your paper (see guidelines below for additional info):
What disease/illness is this patient suffering from and what microorganism is to blame for this illness (provide the full microbial name)? Provide background information on this organism, history, morphology, virulence factors, toxins, etc…
What information from the patient’s symptoms contributed to your decision? What information from the patient’s history, symptoms and/or lab samples contributed to your diagnosis? Support your answers with factual evidence and logical reasoning. Identify at least one other logical possible microbial cause of this disease and explain how this was ruled out.
What is the epidemiology of this disease? Identify risk factors for this disease and describe the disease course/outcome in humans.
What steps can be taken to treat the illness? How and why are the treatments effective (or ineffective)? Are there any concerns or other complications of this disease?
