Summary
- Epidemic secretory diarrhoeal disease caused by Vibrio cholerae, which releases a toxin that stimulates adenylate cyclase. Usually a disease of poverty but well described in returning travellers.
- Classically, patients present passing large quantities (litres) of rice-water stools.
- Basic laboratory tests are non-specific. Culture of the organism is definitive, and rapid dipstick tests are available.
- Most patients will recover if the effects of the ensuing profound volume depletion are combated by oral and/or intravenous rehydration.
- Antibiotics shorten duration and severity of disease, but rising rates of bacterial resistance are becoming problematic.
Other related conditions
- Acute renal failure
- Amoebiasis
- Assessment of acute diarrhoea
- Assessment of hypokalaemia
- Assessment of shock
- Campylobacter infection
- Foodborne E coli infection
- Food poisoning
- Giardiasis
- Ileus
- Miscarriage
- Muscle cramps
- Non-cholera Vibrio infections
- Non-diabetic hypoglycaemia
- Overview of HIV
- Premature labour
- Sepsis
- Small bowel obstruction
- Strongyloides infection
- Salmonellosis
- Shigella infection
- Traveller's diarrhoea
- Typhoid infection
- VIPoma
- Viral gastroenteritis
- Viral gastroenteritis in children
- Volume depletion in adults
- Volume depletion in children
Last updated: May 16, 2013
