Syphilis – An Old Though Thoroughly Modern Disease
By now you have known that syphilis is an STD that can generally be transmitted through sexual contact. It is a communicable disease, development of which is sure but may appear in an irregular manner. It is generally transmitted through direct contact of the infected genitals, and rarely by other means. It can damage any tissue or organ.
The stage where the spirochete starts to invade the body is called primary syphilis. It starts where the infectious lesion had a direct contact, most likely in the penis, the labia and the uterine cervix. It can be observed from the medical history that first contact with an infected person would have been a week to 2 months ago. The characteristic lesion is typified by a chancre, the point of first exposure.
The incubation takes on average 21 days, and it depends on more factors. The chancre begins with slight erosion, which changes rapidly into a superficial, painless ulceration. It is accompanied by hypertrophy of regional ganglions, which are isolated, mobile, and painless.
Secondary syphilis is the period where the infection starts to spread, appearing after 7-10 weeks from first exposure and 2-3 weeks after the primary infection, wherein the microbes migrate from the ganglions in great numbers. There will be a resulting second incubation until skin ulcerations come out within 45 days from appearance of first signs and 60-70 days from first contact with infection.
It is sometimes accompanied by fever. Almost any tissue of the body can be accidentally caught and hurt. However, the most frequent will be the lesions of the teguments and mucous membranes. Lesions on teguments are pustules like elements even if the most frequent rash looks like viral skin disease.
Recurrent syphilis occurs after insufficient or incorrect treatment. In this case, secondary syphilis can emerge again (in 3 to 9 months after treatment). Relapses can be only serologic, without any clinical manifestations. If clinical manifestations still occur, they can be skin and mucous membranes lesions, neurological symptoms, sore eyes, bones affections or visceral ones.
In latent syphilis, infection has been diagnosed in the blood but present no clinical manifestations. It is the period between secondary resumption and progress towards the tertiary stage.
During this stage, there is serologic evidence of syphilis infection; the LCR exam is negative; other exams such as ECG and radiological exam will show lesions of the cardiovascular organs.
Tertiary syphilis or the third stage can occur even after years of latency. Late lesions represent probably an allergic reaction of tissues at Treponema Pallidum and it can affect tissues like skin and mucous membranes. In this case, on the skin can occur tubercles formations, tubercles and ulcerate as well as nodules. On the other hand, mucous membranes can present tubercles and ulcerate lesions.
A pregnant woman can infect the fetus while inside the uterus. Thus the baby is born with congenital syphilis. The father cannot transmit it to the fetus if the mother is healthy.
If the baby has the precocious congenital syphilis type, it will develop symptoms as soon as the baby is born or two years after. Blisters and sometimes ulcerations will be the indications.
Late congenital syphilis happens two years from birth. Lesions will appear, which is an indication that the disease has already progressed to the third stage.
