Mumps: Pathology and Etiology (Pediatric Nursing)

00:01 Now we'll cover mumps. Mumps is a highly contagious viral infection also known as 'epidemic parotitis'.

00:09 It primarily affects the salivary glands and it can be unilateral or bilateral.

00:14 It is vaccine-preventable, it can have serious complications, and there is no treatment.

00:20 So the mumps virus is a single-stranded RNA virus and humans are the only natural host for the virus.

00:27 It can affect people of any age. In the United States, between a few hundred and a few thousand cases occur every year.

00:34 So let's look at the history. It was mentioned by Hippocrates in his Of the Epidemics he wrote in 400 BC.

00:41 It's been described scientifically in 1790 by a British physician, Dr. Robert Hamilton and it's a medically significant disease among armies in World War I and in World War II.

00:52 Here you see the maximum number of people on average that can be infected by one sick person and you'll see a patient with mumps can infect 10 new people. It's highly contagious.

01:04 It's transmitted by droplets including saliva, nasal secretions, coughing, sneezing, laughing or talking, or direct contact with an infected person or fomite which includes non-living items such as utensils, cups, or surfaces.

01:19 This is going to primarily affect the salivary glands called the parotid glands and you'll see on the right, parotitis.

01:25 This is inflammation of the parotid glands, right? -Itis, inflammation of the parotid glands, and there are infectious and non-infectious causes.

01:32 Mumps is an infectious cause.

01:34 The incubation period is 12-25 days and a patient will be infectious from about 7 days before the start of the symptoms to 8 days after.

01:44 So the mumps virus, this is going to target the salivary glands, the central nervous system, the pancreas, and the testes or ovaries.

01:52 The virus is going to enter the mucosa and replicate in the upper respiratory tract.

01:57 Then it's gonna spread to the adjacent lymph nodes and to other target tissues.

02:00 Here, necrosis of the infected cells will begin.

02:04 The salivary gland ducts are gonna be lined with this necrotic epithelium and the interstitium becomes lined with lymphocytes.