Gnathostoma spinigerum Infection in the Upper Lip of a Korean Woman: An Autochthonous Case in Korea.
10.3347/kjp.2013.51.3.343
- Author:
Jae Hee KIM
1
;
Hyemi LIM
;
Young Sang HWANG
;
Tae Yeon KIM
;
Eun Mee HAN
;
Eun Hee SHIN
;
Jong Yil CHAI
Author Information
1. Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital, Seongnam 463-774, Korea. kty@dmc.or.kr
- Publication Type:Case Reports
- Keywords:
Gnathostoma spinigerum;
gnathostomiasis;
case report;
lip
- MeSH:
Adult;
Animals;
Female;
Gnathostoma/*classification;
Gnathostomiasis/epidemiology/parasitology/*pathology/surgery;
Humans;
Republic of Korea/epidemiology
- From:The Korean Journal of Parasitology
2013;51(3):343-347
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Autochthonous human gnathostomiasis had never been reported in the Republic of Korea. We report here a case of Gnathostoma spinigerum infection in a 32-year-old Korean woman, presumed to have been infected via an indigenous route. The patient had experienced a painful migratory swelling near the left nasolabial fold area of the face for a year, with movement of the swelling to the mucosal area of the upper lip 2 weeks before surgical removal of the lesion. Histopathological examinations of the extracted tissue revealed inflammation with heavy eosinophilic infiltrations and sections of a nematode suggestive of a Gnathostoma sp. larva. The larva characteristically revealed about 25 intestinal cells with multiple (3-6) nuclei in each intestinal cell consistent with the 3rd-stage larva of G. spinigerum. The patient did not have any special history of travel abroad except a recent trip, 4 months before surgery, to China where she ate only cooked food. The patient is the first recorded autochthonous case of G. spinigerum infection in Korea.
