Paddy field dermatitis in Shiga prefecture.

VernacularTitle:滋賀県で発生した水田皮膚炎
Author: Minori NAKATA ; Sinya WATANABE
Publication Type:Journal Article
From:Journal of the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine 1990;38(5):1023-1029
CountryJapan
Language:Japanese
Abstract: An epidemic of dermatitis of unknown etiology occurred from May to August, 1983 among the farmers working in paddy fields in Kusatsu city, Shiga prefecture.
The dermatitis was characterized by erythemato-papulo-vesicular eruptions with severe itiching, and localized in legs and arms.
The questionnaire was conducted on 1757 farmers, and 192 of them replied that theysuffered from dermatitis after working in paddy fields with shoes or bare feet. Among the farmers suffering from dermatitis, 58.1 % of them were suspicious of cercarial dermatitis. And the inquiry by the phone made it more affirmative that 90 % of the dermatitis were cercarial dermatitis.
Six patients were serologically examined by indirect fluorescent antibody method using Gigantobilharzia cercariae and Schistosoma mansoni cercariae as antigen. All of them showed high serum titer, and were diagnosed as cercarial dermatitis. Although no cercariae was found from snails in paddy fields of Kusatsu city, Austropeplea ollula, the vector snail for avian schistosome especially for Trichobilharzia was the extremely dominant snail (99.3 %). Trichobilharzia was the most suspicious avian schistosoma as the etiology of this epidemic dermatitis in Kusatsu area.