Summary
- This diagnosis should be considered in any patient with diarrhoea and signs and/or symptoms of malabsorption who has spent more than 2 weeks in a tropical region where the disease is endemic.
- Improvement after folate replacement is prompt and dramatic. Failure to do so should elicit doubt about the diagnosis.
- No causative microbe has been found, but the condition is likely to result from bacterial infection.
- In addition to folic acid supplementation, long-term treatment with antibiotics is currently recommended.
- Deficiencies of folic acid and vitamin B12 and resultant megaloblastic anaemia are the defining characteristics of the disease.
Other related conditions
- Traveller's diarrhoea
- Normal pressure hydrocephalus
- Folate deficiency
- Assessment of acute diarrhoea
- Assessment of steatorrhoea
- Assessment of anaemia
- Extrapulmonary tuberculosis
- Foodborne E coli infection
- Overview of HIV
- Salmonellosis
- Shigella infection
- Strongyloides infection
- Amoebiasis
- Whipple's disease
- Vitamin B3 deficiency
- Crohn's disease
- Vitamin B12 deficiency
- Giardiasis
- Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma)
- Night blindness
Last updated: Mar 26, 2013
