Toxoplasmosis

Definition: Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis

Noun

1. Infection caused by parasites transmitted to humans from infected cats; if contracted by a pregnant woman it can result in serious damage to the fetus.

Specialty Definition: Toxoplasmosis

Domain	Definition
Health	The acquired form of infection by Toxoplasma gondii in animals and man. (references)
Medicine	An infection that is caused by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Source: European Union. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Toxoplasmosis

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Toxoplasmosis is a human parasitic disease caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. People can get infected by eating raw meat or by contact with cat faeces. Congenital toxoplasmosis is a special form in which an unborn child is infected via the placenta. The danger of congenital toxoplasmosis is the reason that pregnant women should avoid contact with cats.

At least one third of the world population may have had a toxoplasmosis infection in their lifetime, but the parasite rarely causes any symptoms in otherwise healthy adults. People with a weakened immune system are susceptible, such as people infected with HIV. The parasite can cause encephalitis (infection of the brain) and neurologic diseases and can affect the heart, liver, and eyes (chorioretinitis).

Treatment is very important for infected pregnant women, to prevent infection of the foetus. But even with antibiotics the parasite cannot be killed completely and the infection can come back later.

How can I get toxoplasmosis?

Through accidental ingestion of contaminated cat feces. This can occur if you accidentally touch your hands to your mouth after gardening, cleaning a cat’s litter box, or touching anything that has come into contact with cat feces.
Through ingestion of raw or partly cooked meat, especially pork, lamb, or venison, or by touching your hands to your mouth after handling undercooked meat.
Through contamination of knives, utensils, cutting boards and other foods that have had contact with raw meat.
Through drinking water contaminated with Toxoplasma.
Although extremely rare, by receiving an infected organ transplant or blood transfusion.

What are the symptoms of toxoplasmosis?

You may feel like you have the "flu," swollen lymph glands, or muscle aches and pains that last for a month or more. Rarely, a person with a "normal" immune system may develop eye damage from toxoplasmosis. However, most people who become infected with toxoplasmosis do not know it. Persons with weak immune systems, such as infants, those with HIV/AIDS, those taking certain types of chemotherapy, or persons who have recently received an organ transplant, may develop severe toxoplasmosis. This can cause damage to the brain or the eyes. Most infants who are infected while in the womb have no symptoms at birth but may develop symptoms later in life. Only a small percentage of infected newborns have serious eye or brain damage at birth.

Who is at risk for severe toxoplasmosis?

Infants born to mothers who became infected with Toxoplasma for the first time DURING or JUST BEFORE pregnancy.
Persons with severely weakened immune systems, such as persons with AIDS. This results from an acute Toxoplasma infection or an infection that occurred earlier in life that reactivates and causes damage to the brain, eyes, or other organs.

Human prevalence

In the U.S. NHANES III national probability sample, 22.5% of 17,658 persons >12 years of age had Toxoplasma-specific IgG antibodies, indicating that they had been infected with the organism.

References

Note: parts of this article are taken from the public domain CDC document CDC factsheet: Toxoplasmosis.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Toxoplasmosis."

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Crosswords: Toxoplasmosis

Specialty definitions using "toxoplasmosis": AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections, Azithromycin ♦ Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic ♦ Toxoplasmosis, Ocular. (references)

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Commercial Usage: Toxoplasmosis

Domain	Title
References	The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Toxoplasmosis (reference) (more reference examples)

Books	Toxoplasmosis with special reference to transmission and life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii (reference) Human Toxoplasmosis (Oxford Medical Publications) (reference) Toxoplasmosis (reference) Toxoplasmosis (NATO Asi Series. Series H. Cell Biology, Vol 78) (reference) Toxoplasmosis in Sheep: Review - Cabi Ito (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Photo Album: Toxoplasmosis

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Histopathology of active toxoplasmosis of myocardium. Numerous tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii are visible within a pseudocyst in a myocyte. Parasite. Credit: CDC.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Toxoplasmosis

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Frenkel JK. Toxoplasmosis in human beings. (references)
		Toxoplasmosis is an infection caused by a single-celled parasite named Toxoplasma gondii. (references)
		Persons with severely weakened immune systems are at greater risk for severe toxoplasmosis. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Toxoplasmosis

"Toxoplasmosis" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Toxoplasmosis" is used about 59 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	59	44,010

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Toxoplasmosis

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day	Expression	Frequency per Day
toxoplasmosis	503	laser toxoplasmosis	4
toxoplasmosis pregnancy	27	el embarazo toxoplasmosis	3
symptom toxoplasmosis	14	gatos toxoplasmosis	3
toxoplasmosis ocular	10	cat in toxoplasmosis	3
gondii toxoplasma toxoplasmosis	10	hiv toxoplasmosis	3
cat toxoplasmosis	9	neonatal toxoplasmosis	3
congenita toxoplasmosis	8	human toxoplasmosis	2
congenital toxoplasmosis	8	de la toxoplasmosis tratamiento	2
toxoplasmosis treatment	8	es la que toxoplasmosis	2
cerebral toxoplasmosis	6	canine toxoplasmosis	2
in pregnancy toxoplasmosis	5	dog in toxoplasmosis	2
feline toxoplasmosis	5	gato gondii heces toxoplasma toxoplasmosis	2
cat pregnancy toxoplasmosis	4	antibody toxoplasmosis	2
picture toxoplasmosis	4	in kitten toxoplasmosis	2
		eye toxoplasmosis	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Toxoplasmosis

Language		Translations for "toxoplasmosis"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Chinese		�"形�"病. (various references)

Danish		toxoplasmosis, toxoplasmose, toksoplasmose. (various references)

Dutch		toxoplasmose. (various references)

Finnish		toksoplasmoosi. (various references)

French		toxoplasmose cérébrale, toxoplasmose (Toxoplasma), encéphalite nécrosante � toxoplasme. (various references)

German		Toxoplasmose. (various references)

Greek		νεκρωτική εγκεφαλίτις από τοξόπλασμα, εγκεφαλική τοξοπλάσμωση, τοξοπλάσμωση. (various references)

Italian		toxoplasmosi. (various references)

Japanese Kanji		トキソプラズマ症 (18-wheeler, articulated lorry, galvanized sheet iron, latest fashion, pepper game, semi-trailer, Thomas Cup, toboggan, toffy, toggle, toggle switch, Tom, tomahawk, tomato, tomato ketchup, tomato puree, tommy gun, tomography, tom-tom, toner, tonic, tonic water, tony tie, top, top ball, top batter, top class, top condition, top down, top fashion, top gear, top group, top hat, top lady, top management, top news, top runner, top scene, top secret, top seller, top spin, top star, topaze, topcoat, top-domain, topic, topic news, topics, topless, top-level, top-note, topological, topology, topper, topping, toss, toss batting, tosser, totocalcio, Toyota, tractor, tractor-trailer, tragedy, tragic, tragi-comedie, transistor glamour, trauma, triad, trial, trial and error, triangle, tri-athlete, triathlon, tribalism, tricycle, Trident, trijet, Tristar, truss, trust, try, zinc). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		トキソプラズマしょう. (various references)

Pig Latin		oxoplasmosistay

Portuguese		toxoplasmose. (various references)

Spanish		toxoplasmosis. (various references)

Swedish		toxoplasmos. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Anagrams: Toxoplasmosis

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-i-l-m-o-o-o-p-s-s-s-t-x"
	-4 letters: psalmists.
	-5 letters: apostils, impastos, misstops, palmists, poloists, psalmist, soloists, topsails, topsoils.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.