Here is the list of the diseases that begin with letter “Y“:
- Yaws
- Yellow fever
- Yellow nail syndrome
- Yersiniosis
- Yim Ebbin syndrome
- Young Simpson syndrome
- Young’s syndrome
- Yunis-Varon syndrome
- Yusho disease
Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pertenue. Other treponemal diseases are bejel (Treponema pallidum endemicum), pinta (Treponema pallidum carateum), and syphilis (Treponema pallidum pallidum).
Examination of ancient remains has led to the suggestion that yaws has affected hominids for the last 1.5 million years. The current name is believed to be of Carib origin, “yaya” meaning sore. It is believed to have originated in tropical areas of Africa, and spread to other tropical areas of the world via immigration and slave trade.
The disease is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact with an infective lesion, with the bacterium entering through a pre-existing cut, bite or scratch. Within ninety days (but usually less than a month) of infection a painless but distinctive ‘mother yaw’ appears, which is a painless nodule which enlarges and becomes warty in appearance. Sometimes nearby ‘daughter yaws’ also appear simultaneously. This primary stage resolves completely within six months. The secondary stage occurs months to years later, and is characterised by widespread skin lesions of varying appearance, including ‘crab yaws’ on the palms and soles with desquamation. These secondary lesions frequently ulcerate (and are then highly infectious), but heal after six months or more. About ten percent of people then go on to develop tertiary disease within five to ten years (during which further secondary lesions may come and go), characterised by widespread bone, joint and soft tissue destruction, which may include extensive destruction of the bone and cartilage of the nose (rhinopharyngitis mutilans or ‘gangosa’).
Treatment is normally by a single intramuscular injection of penicillin, or by a course of penicillin, erythromycin or tetracycline tablets. A single oral dose of azithromycin was shown to be as effective as intramuscular penicillin. Primary and secondary stage lesions may heal completely, but the destructive changes of tertiary yaws are largely irreversible.
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family.
The yellow fever virus is transmitted by the bite of female mosquitoes (the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and other species) and is found in tropical and subtropical areas in South America and Africa, but not in Asia. The only known hosts of the virus are primates and several species of mosquito. The origin of the disease is most likely to be Africa, from where it was introduced to South America through the slave trade in the 16th century. Since the 17th century, several major epidemics of the disease have been recorded in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. In the 19th century, yellow fever was deemed one of the most dangerous infectious diseases.
Yellow fever begins after an incubation period of three to six days. Most cases only cause a mild infection with fever, headache, chills, back pain, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. In these cases the infection lasts only three to four days. In fifteen percent of cases, however, sufferers enter a second, toxic phase of the disease with recurring fever, this time accompanied by jaundice due to liver damage, as well as abdominal pain. Bleeding in the mouth, the eyes, and the gastrointestinal tract will cause vomitus containing blood (giving the name black vomit).
For yellow fever there is, like for all diseases caused by Flaviviruses, no causative cure. Hospitalization is advisable and intensive care may be necessary because of rapid deterioration in some cases. Different methods for acute treatment of the disease have been shown to not be very successful; passive immunisation after emergence of symptoms is probably without effect. Ribavirin and other antiviral drugs as well as treatment with interferons do not have a positive effect in patients.
Yellow nail syndrome is a rare medical syndrome that includes pleural effusions, lymphoedema (due to lymphatic hypoplasia) and yellow dystrophic nails. Approximately 40% will also have bronchiectasis. It is also associated with chronic sinusitis and persistent coughing. It usually affects adults.
Normal treatment for swelling and any respiratory problems is appropriate. Nutritional supplementation with Vitamin E in some studies has been shown to be effective in controlling nail changes.
Restated, yellow nail syndrome is characterized by marked thickening and yellow to yellow-green discoloration of the nails often associated with systemic disease, most commonly lymphedema and compromised respiration.
Yersiniosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium of the genus Yersinia. In the United States, most yersiniosis infections among humans are caused by Y. enterocolitica.
Infection with Y. enterocolitica occurs most often in young children. The infection is thought to be contracted through the consumption of undercooked meat products, unpasteurized milk, or water contaminated by the bacteria. It has been also sometimes associated with handling raw chitterlings.
Infection with Y. enterocolitica can cause a variety of symptoms depending on the age of the person infected, therefore it’s often referred to as “monkey of diseases”. Common symptoms in children are fever, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, which is often bloody. Symptoms typically develop 4 to 7 days after exposure and may last 1 to 3 weeks or longer. In older children and adults, right-sided abdominal pain and fever may be the predominant symptoms, and may be confused with appendicitis. In a small proportion of cases, complications such as skin rash, joint pains, or the spread of bacteria to the bloodstream (bacteremia) can occur.
Treatment often requires aggressive antibiotic therapy, typically involving ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and polymyxin. However, some gastoenterologists, especially in Scandinavia, consider antibiotic treatment mostly only when the patient has significant and persisting symptoms of gastroenteritis. Diarrhea caused by yersiniosis generally goes away on its own.
Yim Ebbin syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by the absence of arms, a cleft lip and palate, hydrocephalus, and an iris coloboma. It was first described by Yim and Ebbin in 1982, and later by Thomas and Donnai in 1994. In 1996, a third case was reported by Froster et al. who suggested that the three cases were related and represented a distinct syndrome.
Young Simpson syndrome is a rare congenital disorder with symptoms including hypothyroidism, heart defects, facial dysmorphism, cryptorchidism in males, hypotonia, mental retardation and postnatal growth retardation.
Other symptoms include transient hypothyroidism, macular degeneration and torticollis. The condition was discovered in 1987 and the name arose from the individuals who first reported the syndrome. A individual with YSS has been identified with having symptoms to a similar syndrome known as Ohdo Blepharophimosis syndrome showing that it is quite difficult to diagnose the correct condition based on the symptoms present. Some doctors therefore consider the syndrome to be the same.
The mode of inheritance has had mixed findings based on studies undertaken. One study showed that the parents of an individual with YSS are unrelated and phenotypically normal, indicating a sporadic mutation, thus making it difficult to base the cause of the condition on genetic make up alone. Another study however with an individual of YSS had first cousins as parents, giving the possibility of autosomal recessive inheritance.
Young’s syndrome which is also known as Azoospermia sinopulmonary infections, Sinusitis-infertility syndrome and Barry-Perkins-Young syndrome is a rare condition that encompasses a combination of syndromes such as bronchiectasis, rhinosinusitis and reduced fertility. In individuals with this syndrome, the functioning of the lungs is usually normal but the mucus is abnormally viscous. The reduced fertility (azoospermia) is due to functional obstruction of sperm transport down the genital tract at the epididymis where the sperms are found in viscous, lipid-rich fluid. The syndrome was named after Donald Young, the urologist who first made observations of the clinical signs of the syndrome in 1972. There have been several studies undertaken suggesting that contact with mercury might cause the syndrome. A variant of Young’s syndrome has been observed in an individual, showing slightly different signs and symptoms.
Yunis-Varon syndrome also called cleidocranial dysplasia with micrognathia, absent thumbs and distal aphalangia, is an extremely rare autosomal recessive multisystem congenital disorder which affects the skeletal system, ectodermal tissue, heart and respiratory system.
Features of YVS include growth retardation before and after birth, defective growth of the bones of the skull along with complete or partial absence of the shoulder blades and characteristic facial features. Additional symptoms may include abnormalities of the fingers and/or toes. In most cases, infants with this disorder experience severe feeding problems and respiratory difficulties. In addition, affected infants may have heart defects.
YVS has been described relatively recently in the 1980s and since then less than 15 cases have been reported around the world. Many of the infants did not survive beyond one year of age.
Yusho disease (literally oil symptoms) was a mass poisoning by PCBs which occurred in northern Kyūshū, Japan in 1968. In January 1968, rice bran oil produced by Kanemi Company in Kyushu started to become contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). The contaminated rice bran oil was then sold to poultry farmers for use as a feed supplement and to consumers for use in cooking. In February to March 1968, farmers started reporting that their poultry were dying due to apparent difficulty in breathing; altogether 400,000 birds died. About 14,000 people who had consumed the contaminated rice oil were affected in Japan. Common symptoms included dermal and ocular lesions, irregular menstrual cycles and a lowered immune response. Other symptoms included fatigue, headache, cough, and unusual skin sores. Additionally, in children, there were reports of poor cognitive development.
Although a decade had passed, an almost identical case occurred in Taiwan in 1979. Again, rice oil had been heated by filaments that leaked. On this occasion, the condition there was known as Yu-cheng disease.
