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Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review

Congenital syphilis is a significant public health problem. Pregnant women infected with Treponema pallidum present with various clinical manifestations, mainly including skin or visceral manifestations. The extensive clinical manifestations of T. pallidum infection mimic those of many other disease...

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Autores principales: Peng, Lei-Wen, Gao, Yu-Jie, Cui, Ya-li, Xu, Huang, Gao, Zheng-Xiang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9853042/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36684903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1073893
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author Peng, Lei-Wen
Gao, Yu-Jie
Cui, Ya-li
Xu, Huang
Gao, Zheng-Xiang
author_facet Peng, Lei-Wen
Gao, Yu-Jie
Cui, Ya-li
Xu, Huang
Gao, Zheng-Xiang
author_sort Peng, Lei-Wen
collection PubMed
description Congenital syphilis is a significant public health problem. Pregnant women infected with Treponema pallidum present with various clinical manifestations, mainly including skin or visceral manifestations. The extensive clinical manifestations of T. pallidum infection mimic those of many other diseases during pregnancy, which may lead to delayed diagnosis and serious consequences. We report a case of fetal T. pallidum infection and premature delivery in a woman whose syphilis screening was negative at 16 weeks of gestation. Despite presenting to the dermatologist at 24 weeks of gestation with maculopapular rash which is usually associated with secondary syphilis, the diagnosis of syphilis was not considered. This case shows that even if early syphilis screening of pregnant women is negative, they may still get infected with T. pallidum later on in pregnancy. Therefore, in patients presenting with a rash without an obvious cause, T. pallidum infection should be excluded. The health status of patients' spouses should be assessed during pregnancy. Additionally, perinatal health education is necessary for women and their spouses during pregnancy. The abovementioned factors could reduce the probability of T. pallidum infection in pregnant women and their infants.
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spelling pubmed-98530422023-01-21 Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review Peng, Lei-Wen Gao, Yu-Jie Cui, Ya-li Xu, Huang Gao, Zheng-Xiang Front Public Health Public Health Congenital syphilis is a significant public health problem. Pregnant women infected with Treponema pallidum present with various clinical manifestations, mainly including skin or visceral manifestations. The extensive clinical manifestations of T. pallidum infection mimic those of many other diseases during pregnancy, which may lead to delayed diagnosis and serious consequences. We report a case of fetal T. pallidum infection and premature delivery in a woman whose syphilis screening was negative at 16 weeks of gestation. Despite presenting to the dermatologist at 24 weeks of gestation with maculopapular rash which is usually associated with secondary syphilis, the diagnosis of syphilis was not considered. This case shows that even if early syphilis screening of pregnant women is negative, they may still get infected with T. pallidum later on in pregnancy. Therefore, in patients presenting with a rash without an obvious cause, T. pallidum infection should be excluded. The health status of patients' spouses should be assessed during pregnancy. Additionally, perinatal health education is necessary for women and their spouses during pregnancy. The abovementioned factors could reduce the probability of T. pallidum infection in pregnant women and their infants. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9853042/ /pubmed/36684903 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1073893 Text en Copyright © 2023 Peng, Gao, Cui, Xu and Gao. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Peng, Lei-Wen
Gao, Yu-Jie
Cui, Ya-li
Xu, Huang
Gao, Zheng-Xiang
Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title_full Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title_fullStr Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title_full_unstemmed Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title_short Missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: A case report and brief literature review
title_sort missed opportunities for screening congenital syphilis early during pregnancy: a case report and brief literature review
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9853042/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36684903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1073893
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