Tissue Nematodes

Question 1

Trichinosis (Trichinella spiralis)

Answer 1

• Inadequatly cooked or encysted meat; PORK.
• Survives in human skeletal muscle, myositis (diaphragm, ocular muscles, tongue, intercostals, deltoids, gastrocnemius), calcifications
• Classic sign: periorbital edema, swelling around the eyes, which may be caused by vasculitis.
• Extreme eosinophilia (>50% of leukocytes)
• May have CNS or cardiac involvement

Question 2

Visceral Larva Migrans / Toxocariasis (Toxocara canis & T. catis)

Answer 2

• ingestion of fecal contaminated food (from dogs/cats)
• hypereosinophilia, pneumonitis, hypergammaglobulinemia
• cheif symptom: loss of vision in one eye.
• usually Self-limited

Question 3

Cutaneous Larva Migrans (“Creeping eruption”)

Answer 3

• spread through skin on contact (dogs and cats major source of of disease)
• severe, itching, inflammation

Question 4

Dracunculiasis / Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis)

Answer 4

• infection of connective and subcutaneous tissues
• transmitted by drinking water contaminated with intermediate host, crustacean of genus Cyclops
• year incubation: symptoms: systemic allergic reaction, blisters that burst upon contact with water with female worm partially emerging
• dead worms provoke intense inflammatory response