Infectious Mononucleosis – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

infectious mononucleosis in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Not just tonsillitis
2. The unusual cells
3. Negative in a toddler
4. A rash after tablets
5. The liver tests
6. Another cause to exclude
7. Reading the serology
8. Suddenly pale
9. Struggling to swallow
10. Pain at the shoulder
11. When most at risk
12. Back to school
13. Worse weeks on
14. The school letter
15. After the new liver
16. Things look wrong
17. Asking for tablets
18. Painful vulval sores

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: A sandpaper rash on the trunk with flushed cheeks, Activated cytotoxic T cells responding to infected B cells, Repeat the same screening test every day until positive, It is a viral rash that would have appeared without any antibiotic, A mild, self-limiting hepatitis that is common in this illness, A repeat heterophile test in a fortnight with no other tests, No exposure at any time, so the virus cannot be the cause, Splenic sequestration of red cells into the enlarged spleen alone, Admission with corticosteroids to shrink the obstructing tonsils, A fractured left rib causing pain referred to the upper abdomen, Only in the rare children whose illness goes on for over a year, Complete bed rest is needed until the tiredness has fully gone, Bone marrow examination, since this is not how the infection behaves, He must stay away until repeat serology shows he is no longer infected.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Glandular fever: posterior nodes and a palpable spleen.
• Atypical lymphocytes: T cells reacting to infected B cells.
• Under four, heterophile tests fail: send capsid IgM.
• Amoxicillin rash in glandular fever: rarely true allergy.
• Glandular fever often causes a mild, passing hepatitis.
• EBV-negative glandular fever in a teenager: test for HIV.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all Infectious Disease case decks · pediatric reference values.