No abstract available.
Fascioliasis* ; Humans*

Human fascioliasis has recently been widely found in many regions of Vietnam confirmed by clinical and laboratory examinations. Therapeutic efficacy of the specific treatment drug for this disease - triclabendazole (provided by WHO) - was investigated in a study conducted in the hospital for tropical diseases, Ho Chi Minh city from November 2004 to August 2005. A total number of 53 patients treated with single dose of triclabendazole 10 mg/kg of body weight were found to have good compliance. All clinical symptoms disappeared within 24 hours of drug administration and three days later the patients were allowed to discharge with the good health status: pinky face, no abdominal pain and fever, normal vital signs, and good general status. All the patients were requested to return to hospital for re-checking after three months. However, only 18 of them had followed the request due to the objective reasons. The returned ones were found to have good health state with no resurgent clinical features and normal laboratory findings except for a slow decrease of antibody titer. The remaining patients were followed up via telephone and mails showed good health status. Triclabendazole was found to be a good anti-fascioliasis drug with high safety and efficacy and low side effects, and is recommended to widely use in treatment for fascioliasis.
Fascioliasis ; Therapeutics ; Benzimidazoles

During two years (2002-2004) a study was conducted in the Northern parts of Vietnam, 35 fascioliasis patients have been determined in 15 provinces. The clinical symptoms found in these patients were pain in the right quadrian of chest 94.3%, fever 60.0%, weight loss 57.1%, indigestion 54.3%, digestive disorder 42.9%, upper abdominal pain 42.9%, allergery 17.1%, out-penetration of adult worm from knee-joints 2.9%. The sub-clinical symptoms detemined by ultrasound images were liver abscesses with mixed echo (100%), eosinophillia in 34 patients (97.1%), Fasciola eggs in stool (25.7%), ELISA (+) with Fasciola gigantica antigen (100%) and almost by title of 1/12,800. Within those patients had been followed, some biochemical index of liver and kidney (GOT, GPT, Creatinin, Ure) were unchanged.
Fascioliasis ; Epidemiology ; Diagnosis

Adolescent ; Fascioliasis ; diagnosis ; drug therapy ; etiology ; Humans ; Male

Fascioliasis in cattle is one of the most common and very serious trematode diseases in Korea. In the present study, the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was applied in the diagnosis of fascioliasis using antigen of Fasciola hepatica, peroxidase of conjugate anti-cattle IgG and orthophenylenediamine as a substrate by micro-method technique of Voller et al. (1976b) and MacLaren (1978) with a slight modification. Results obtained from the present study are as follows: In assay for optimal dilution of stock antigen, the antigen (protein contents; 0.8 mg/ml) was diluted from 1/50 to 1/600 with carbonate buffer (pH 9.6), and then absorbance values were measured with 1/100 diluted sera. The regression equations between the OD values of ELISA and dilution of antigen were log Y=-0.181-0.00127X in infected sera, and log Y= -0.578- 0.000879X in normal sera. The significantly higher (p<0.05) OD value was observed in the former. In assay for optimal dilution of sera, the sera were diluted from 1/25 to 1/400 with in PBS/ Tween 20(pH 7.4), and absorbance values were measured with 1/200 diluted antigen. The regression equation between the OD values of ELISA and dilution of sera were log Y=-0.1540-0.0007238X in infected sera and log Y=-0.4834-0.00116X in normal sera. The former was higher than the latter (p<0.05). In the 27 cases of negative intradermal test, OD values of the ELISA are 0.447 +/- 0.144, the 95 percent confidence interval (Mean+2 x SD) of the values was 0.735, and there was no case over the values. Therefore, the sensitivity of the antigen to diagnose fascioliasis was 100 percent in the negative case. The OD value 0.7 which is designed as a criterion (detection level of positive one) is useful for the performance of the ELISA in fascioliasis. According to the OD value of criterion in the regression equations, the optimal dilutions of stock antigen and serum were 1/250 and 1/100, respectively. In the 58 cases of fascioliasis from which the adult could be found in the bile ducts, the OD value was 0.846+0.224(-0.224). The 75 percent (44 cattle) among them had higher value with compared to the criterion, and the 60 percent (20 cattle) of the cases of proliferative cholangitis of 33 cattle which had been infected previousely with Fasciola sp. is higher than the criterion. Prevalence of fascioliasis was 43.4 percent in the application of the ELISA to 272 cattle which were reared in Jeonbug district.
parasitology-helminth-trematoda ; enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ; Fasciola sp. ; fascioliasis ; cattle

Fascioliasis is a zoonotic disease caused by Fasciola hepatica, a liver fluke, for which human acts as an accidental host. Fascioliasis, while common in some tropical countries, is rare in Korea. Endoscopie retrograde cholangiopancreatography(ERCP) has been described in only a very few cases as a useful technique for the diagnosis of fascioliasis. We report a case of fascioliasis diagnosed by ERCP, after endoscopic sphinchterotomy adult worms were removed by Dormia basket.
Adult ; Biliary Tract* ; Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde* ; Diagnosis ; Fasciola hepatica ; Fascioliasis* ; Humans ; Korea ; Pancreas* ; Sphincterotomy, Endoscopic ; Zoonoses

Parasitic diseases are widely distributed throughout the world. Recently, travel abroad and migration from abroad are increasing in Korea. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately control imported parasitic disease. The drugs for the treatment of the parasitic diseases that can be imported from abroad are reserved by the government. To guide proper treatment of parasitic diseases, recommended chemotherapy focused on these reserved drugs has been introduced. The diseases reviewed in this article include malaria, babesiosis, toxoplasmosis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness, filariasis, angiostrongyliasis, and fascioliasis. Because most of the parasitic diseases produce severe illness or fatal results, rapid and accurate diagnosis is important and following fully the recommended therapy is needed. The recommended drug therapy changes from time to time due to various factors, so always recognizing and applying the latest therapy and is very important.
Animals ; Babesiosis ; Chagas Disease ; Fascioliasis ; Filariasis ; Korea ; Leishmaniasis ; Malaria ; Parasitic Diseases ; Strongylida Infections ; Toxoplasmosis ; Trypanosomiasis, African

In order to obtain the most specific and sensitive antigen from crude antigens of Fasciola hepatica for the immunodiagnosis of bovine fascioliasis by the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA), phosphate buffered saline extract of F. hepatica was prepared. The crude extract was fractionated into 7 antigens using Sephadex G-100 column chromatography. Seven fractionated antigens were applied to ELISA, precipitation test and intradermal test, respectively. Results obtained are as follows: The specificity (95 per cent confidence interval in negative sera of bovine fascioliasis ; Mean+2 x SD of absorbance ) of the first (MW>150,000) and the second antigens (MW 120,000) were 93.7 per cent, but those of others including crude antigen showed 100 per cen.t. The sensitivity (positive sera of bovine fascioliasis having higher values with compared to the criterion) of the first, the sixth (MW 16,000) and the seventh antigen (MW<5,000) were 91.6 per cent, 87.5 per cent and 0 per cent, respectively, but those of others showed all 100 per cent. The absorbance by ELISA using the fifth antigen (MW 26,000) was 8.43-folds higher in the positive sera than that in the negative sera. This could be used as one of the most specific antigens for the immunodiagnosis of bovine fascioliasis. In Ouchterlony test, precipitin lines were not found in the sera naturally infected with F. hepatica, but some were found in the sera of rabbits immunized with the crude antigens. The numbers of precipitin lines in the sera of rabbits were different in the different fractionated antigens. They were 6 in the crude, 2 in the second and the third antigens, 1 in the forth, the fifth and the sixth antigens and absent in the seventh antigen, respectively. The wheal size for the bovine infected with F. hepatica was 2.46+-0.15 cm in the intradermal test antigen (saline extract of F. hepatica) supplied by the Veterinary Research Institute, Rural Development Administration, Korea. The wheal size of the first, the second and the third antigens were larger than that of intradermal test antigen, whereas those of the forth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh antigens showed smaller than that of the intradermal test antigen. The results suggest that the fifth antigen may be specific antigen for the immunodiagnosis of bovine fascioliasis.
parasitology-helminth-trematoda ; immunology ; enzyme-linke immunosorbent assay ; diagnosis ; fascioliasis ; Fasciola hepatica

We report here an ectopic case of Fasciola hepatica infection confirmed by recovery of an adult worm in the mesocolon. A 56-year-old female was admitted to our hospital with discomfort and pain in the left lower quadrant of the abdomen. Abdominal CT showed 3 abscesses in the left upper quadrant, mesentery, and pelvic cavity. On surgical exploration, abscess pockets were found in the mesocolon of the sigmoid colon and transverse colon. A leaf-like worm found in the abscess pocket of the mesocolon of the left colon was diagnosed as an adult fluke of F. hepatica. Histologically, numerous eggs of F. hepatica were noted with acute and chronic granulomatous inflammations in the subserosa and pericolic adipose tissues. Conclusively, a rare case of ectopic fascioliasis has been confirmed in this study by the adult worm recovery of F. hepatica in the mesocolon.
Animals ; Fasciola hepatica/genetics/*isolation & purification ; Fascioliasis/diagnosis/*parasitology ; Female ; Humans ; Mesocolon/*parasitology ; Middle Aged

Fascioliasis has not been confirmed as a human disease entity until now in Korea despite of sporadic discovery of ova of Fasciola sp. in human fecal materials being never traced to the confirmation of infection. Almost all of the cases with ova in their stool have been related with consumption of cattle liver whether eaten in raw or processed. The present authors confirmed a human fascioliasis case who was a Korean housewife of 42-year-old living in Seoul, during the exploratory laparotomy. The patient had been healthy until October 1975 when abrupt onset of urticaria, dyspepsia, epigastric discomfort developed. And the fluctuation of these symptoms was followed by epigastric colicky pain attacks from December 4, 1975. A complete worm of Fasciola sp. was removed during the bile-duct exploration with stone forceps in lower half of common bile duct, on January 20, 1976. The patient only agreed that she had eaten some raw liver of cattle on September 1975 but denied any possible sources of infection such as drinking of untreated water, handling of water flower and grass, and eating of raw watercress. The measurements of the removed worm: 35. 61 mm in body length, 14.00 mm in maximum body width(Length/width ratio, 2.54:1), distribution of testes to body length 33.9 per cent , number of branches of ovary 22, the size of intrauterine ova 157.2 x 108. 4 micrometer in average. These findings are not compatible with the classical descriptions of both Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica, and it was concluded it is so-called Fasciola sp. which is intermediate between two species as proposed by many Japanese workers.
parasitology-helminth-trematoda ; Fasciola hepatica ; Fasciola gigantica ; Fasciola sp. ; case report ; fascioliasis ; laparotomy ; bile-duct