RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Botulism is a syndrome caused by the toxin of the bacillus Clostridium botulinum. The toxin acts by blocking the presynaptic cholinergic endings of the neuromuscular junction and of the parasympathetic nervous system, and gives rise to a flaccid paralysis and parasympathetic failure. The most common way to catch the disease is by ingestion of the preformed toxin present in badly sterilised home-made preserves, although other mechanisms are also possible. Its incidence in Spain today is very low. CASE REPORTS: We report the case of three members of a family living together who presented a clinical picture of food-borne botulism. The initial clinical symptoms showed a predilection for ocular paresis and for dysautonomic symptoms of little specificity, and the familial aggregation was the fundamental evidence that suggested the diagnosis. Later, the patients' state got worse and two of them presented involvement of the respiratory function and required a lengthy stay in the intensive care unit. After a period of convalescence the three patients recovered without any sequelae. Botulinum toxin was detected by bioassay in some food samples, which allowed the diagnosis to be categorised as confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: The familial microepidemic reported here is a case of predominantly ocular and dysautonomic involvement. Likewise, it illustrates several aspects that are typical of the disease: the suspected diagnosis in cohabiting patients who visit at the same time for a similar clinical picture, the characteristic complications of the process and its treatment, the laboratory diagnosis and its natural history towards resolution.
TITLE: Microepidemia familiar de botulismo alimentario en la Comunidad de Madrid.Introduccion. El botulismo es un sindrome causado por la toxina del bacilo Clostridium botulinum. La toxina actua bloqueando las terminaciones colinergicas presinapticas de la placa motora y del sistema nervioso parasimpatico, y ocasiona una paralisis flacida y un fallo parasimpatico. El modo mas habitual de adquisicion de la enfermedad es por ingesta de toxina preformada presente en las conservas caseras mal esterilizadas, aunque otros mecanismos son posibles. Su incidencia actual en Espana es muy baja. Casos clinicos. Se describen tres miembros convivientes de una familia que presentaron un cuadro de botulismo alimentario. Las manifestaciones clinicas iniciales mostraron predileccion por la paresia ocular y por sintomatologia disautonomica de escasa especificidad, y la agregacion familiar fue el indicio fundamental que sugirio el diagnostico. Posteriormente, los pacientes empeoraron y dos de ellos presentaron afectacion de la funcion respiratoria y precisaron ingreso prolongado en la unidad de cuidados intensivos. Los tres pacientes convalecieron y se recuperaron sin secuelas. Se consiguio detectar la toxina botulinica por bioensayo en los restos de alimentos, lo que confiere al caso la categoria diagnostica de confirmado. Conclusiones. La microepidemia familiar presentada constituye un caso de afectacion inicial predominantemente ocular y disautonomica. Asimismo, ilustra varios aspectos tipicos de la enfermedad: la sospecha diagnostica ante pacientes convivientes que acuden simultaneamente por clinica similar, las complicaciones caracteristicas del proceso y su tratamiento, el diagnostico de laboratorio y su historia natural hacia la resolucion.
Assuntos
Botulismo/diagnóstico , Bioensaio , Toxinas Botulínicas/análise , Clostridium botulinum , Contaminação de Alimentos , Humanos , Tempo de Internação , EspanhaRESUMO
We present the ioChem-BD platform ( www.iochem-bd.org ) as a multiheaded tool aimed to manage large volumes of quantum chemistry results from a diverse group of already common simulation packages. The platform has an extensible structure. The key modules managing the main tasks are to (i) upload of output files from common computational chemistry packages, (ii) extract meaningful data from the results, and (iii) generate output summaries in user-friendly formats. A heavy use of the Chemical Mark-up Language (CML) is made in the intermediate files used by ioChem-BD. From them and using XSL techniques, we manipulate and transform such chemical data sets to fulfill researchers' needs in the form of HTML5 reports, supporting information, and other research media.
