Sammanfattning
Background. Whipple’s disease is a rare infectious disease. This review describes the clinical picture, diagnostic aspects and treatment options.
Material and methods. Based on a clinical case, a literature study was performed by searching PubMed (unlimited) with the words «whipples disease» combined with «tropheryma whippelii» (118 hits) and «tropheryma whipplei» (65 hits). Titles and abstracts were used to identify other relevant articles.
Results and interpretation. Whipple’s disease may affect several organ systems and thus causes a wide range of symptoms. The most common ones are weight loss, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and arthralgia. The diagnosis is based on PAS-positive material in duodenal biopsies and identification of gene fragments from the bacterium Tropheryma whipplei. Presence of the bacterium may be confirmed by sensitive polymerase chain reaction assays. Left without treatment the disease may be lethal. Proper antibiotic treatment is imperative to heal the disease.