Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0019209 (hepatomegaly)
 5,798 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Visceral larva migrans is a disease in which the larvae of animal parasites invade human tissues but do not complete their life cycles. The most frequent cause of this illness in children is the dog roundworm, Toxocara canis. A review of the literature, as well as our clinical experience, indicates that there are two forms of clinical expression: one, visceral, and the other, ocular. In general the clinical and laboratory abnormalities (hepatomegaly, recurrent pneumonia, eosinophilia, and hyperglobulinemia) usually associated with visceral disease are absent in children with ocular abnormalities. Conversely, there is a general lack of eye complications in patients with systemic disease. Reasons for these variations in clinical expression are unknown, but immune responses of the host and the antigenic composition of the parasite may be contributing factors.
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PMID:Visceral larva migrans. A review and reassessment indicating two forms of clinical expression: visceral and ocular. 35 38

Visceral Larva Migrans (Toxocara canis) is usually a relatively benign disease which is caused by infective second-stage larvae of the common cosmopolitan ascarid of dogs, characterized chiefly by sustained eosinophilia, pulmonary symptoms and hepatomegaly. Its severity varies with the number of larvae in the tissue and the immune or allergic state of the infected individual. The most important aspect of the neurotropic larvae perhaps is its potential as a facilitating agent, for instance, for Virus or Toxoplasma gondii invasion of the central nervous system by destroying the blood-brain barrier. Ocular invasion characteristically occurs after primary infestation, seldom bilaterally. Larvae may present three different ocular lesions: a granulomatosis at the posterior pole (solitary granuloma), a chronic endophthalmitis or peripheral retinal lesions with proliferation. Prognosis regarding visual acuity depends on early diagnosis and larval localization. The author reports on successful therapy with a combination of antibiotics, sulfonamides, prednisolone and vermifuge. The microprecipitation test on living larvae is considered to be superior all serological tests at present but a negative result (at first) does not exclude T. canis invasion (compare case report). LMV syndrome should be ruled out if the patient suffers from cerebral spasms whose cause is unclear.
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PMID:[Toxocara canis (larva migrans visceralis) from an ophthalmological point of view (author's transl)]. 725 11

Visceral larva migrans is a syndrome characteristically involving children with a history of pica, and usually presents with fever, abdominal pain, tender hepatomegaly, and hypereosinophilia. Hepatic granulomas of visceral larva migrans are rare in adults. We describe three adult patients with hepatic lesions which on histopathology demonstrated characteristic granulomas of visceral larva migrans. All patients had abdominal sonograms and two had additional MR scans of the liver. Both ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated characteristic appearances which have not been described previously (viz., ill-defined central necrotic areas surrounded by concentric thick walls and perifocal edema in the liver parenchyma).
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PMID:Hepatic granulomas due to visceral larva migrans in adults: appearance on US and MRI. 801 56

Visceral larva migrans (VLM) syndrome caused by Toxocara canis larvae was first described in the 1950s. The role of other nematode larvae, i.e. the pig roundworm Ascaris suum as a causative agent of visceral larva migrans-associated symptoms like general malaise, cough, liver dysfunction, hypereosinophilia with hepatomegaly and/or pneumonia, was discussed controversially during the last decades. Recent serological screening studies for specific A. suum antibodies carried out in the Netherlands and Sweden yielded remarkable high seroprevalences, while a number of case reports from Japan report pulmonal, hepatic and cerebral symptoms caused by A. suum larvae after ingestion of infected raw meat (liver) or contaminated vegetables. We present here a sensitive and specific larval excretory-secretory (E/S) antigen-based immunoblot (As-IB) for the serodiagnosis of A. suum-infected patients suffering from symptoms associated to the VLM syndrome. In total, 34 sera from patients with hypereosinophilia and other clinical symptoms associated to the VLM syndrome tested negative for Toxocara sp. antibodies but positive in our newly established As-IB, 30 sera from healthy volunteers, 53 sera from patients with clinically and serologically confirmed toxocarosis and other helminthoses as well as 3 sera from patients with intestinal ascariosis due to Ascaris lumbricoides were included in the study. When evaluated with 30 sera from healthy volunteers and 53 sera from patients suffering from different helminthoses, the calculated specificity of our new As-IB is 95%. Problems hampering the establishment of simple serological screening tests for specific A. suum antibodies, like extensive antigenic similarities between the nematodes Ascaris and Toxocara or the absence of suitable experimental animals, are discussed. We assume that specific serological testing for antibodies of A. suum is very important for the treatment of individual patients on one hand and seroepidemiological investigations will help to clarify routes of transmission on the other hand. Further studies will be necessary to learn more about the extent of A. suum as a causative agent of the VLM syndrome and the role of pigs and their manure as the main source of human Ascaris infections in Austria and other industrialized countries.
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PMID:Immunoblot for the detection of Ascaris suum-specific antibodies in patients with visceral larva migrans (VLM) syndrome. 2536 10