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Query: UMLS:C0042961 (volvulus)
 4,305 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The overall prevalence of onchocerciasis was 78% and 73% in three villages of the woodland savanna of Koinadugu and four villages of the savanna-forest mosaic of Kambia respectively. The total number of persons examined was 611. In Koinadugu the prevalence of microfilariae of Onchocerca volvulus in skin snips from the iliac crest and canthus was 51.3% and 22.5% respectively while corresponding figures for Kambia were 52.2% and 19.3%. The pattern of clinical manifestations were similar in both districts, the overall rates for nodules, skin lesions (moderate and severe) and leg elephantiasis being 53.2%, 12.5% and 0.3% respectively. No cases of hanging groin were seen. The prevalence of onchocercal eye lesions was lower in the present surveys than in our own findings in Guinea or the findings of other investigators in the Guinea or Sudan savanna of West Africa. In the present study prevalences of the fourmain blinding eye lesions in persons aged 30 years or more were sclerosing keratitis (3.7%), iritis (8.7%), optic atrophy (14.2%) and choroidoretinitis (11.3%), and the prevalence of blindness was 4.2% (both eyes) and 2.0% (one eye). Males were more commonly affected than females. Further entomological studies are needed to elucidate the relative role played by the different cytospecies of Simulium damnosum s.l. in the transmission of onchocerciasis in the savanna of Sierra Leone.
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PMID:Epidemiological studies of onchocerciasis in savanna villages of Sierra Leone. 319 72

Very little of the original primary forest remains in Sierra Leone and the savanna is mainly woodland or a forest-savanna mosaic. The prevalence of microfilariae of Onchocerca volvulus, nodules and moderate or severe skin lesions was higher in forest than savanna villages. In forest villages the prevalence of microfilariae was 71.8% at the iliac crest, 36.6% (outer canthus), 12.8% (cornea) and 34.1% in the anterior chamber of the eye. Corresponding figures for the savanna villages were 51.9%, 20.5%, 5.6% and 21.8%. The overall prevalence of nodules in the forest and savanna was 70.5% and 53.2% respectively, while the prevalence of head and upper body nodules was 14.8% (forest) and 11.0% (savanna). The prevalence of moderate or severe skin lesions was 17.7% in forest and 13.0% in savanna villages. Lesions of the groin and scrotum were few in both zones. In persons aged 30 years or more the prevalence rates of severe eye lesions--sclerosing keratitis, iritis, optic atrophy and choroidoretinitis--were 4.3%, 16.1%, 13.9% and 14.8% respectively in forest villages. Corresponding figures for the savanna villages were 3.7%, 8.7%, 14.2% and 11.3%. Males were more commonly affected than females. At least one of these lesions was found in 32% persons in forest and 24% in savanna villages.
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PMID:Onchocerciasis in Sierra Leone.2: A comparison of forest and savanna villages. 325 13

The relationship between severe onchocercal eye lesions (iritis, sclerosing keratitis, optic atrophy and choroidoretinitis) and (i) the prevalence and intensity of microfilariae (mf) of Onchocerca volvulus in skin snips from the iliac crest and outer canthus, and (ii) the prevalence of mf in the cornea and anterior chamber of the eye, was studied in 1414 persons from forest and savanna villages and 312 attenders at eye clinics. Ecologically the savanna of Sierra Leone more closely resembles the forest than the dry Sudan-savanna areas of West Africa, and in persons aged 30 years or more the combined prevalence of anterior segment lesions (iritis and sclerosing keratitis) was higher in the forest villages (20.6%) than in the savanna (12.7%). The higher loads of mf found in the forest compared to savanna villages could explain these results. Prevalence rates for posterior segment lesions (optic atrophy and choroidoretinitis) were 28.1% and 22.6% in the forest and savanna respectively. Although in villages from both zones there was a close association between mf in the anterior chamber and optic atrophy, other associations between posterior segment lesions and mf were either not significant or weak. In contrast, there was a strong association between anterior segment lesions and mf in the eye and the concentration of mf at the outer canthus. This association was stronger for iritis than for sclerosing keratitis.
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PMID:Onchocerciasis in Sierra Leone 3: Relationships between eye lesions and microfilarial prevalence and intensity. 325 14

One of the most significant contributions to tropical medicine and ophthalmology was made by Jean Hissette: African ocular onchocerciasis. During his extensive investigations in the Babindi country, he found numerous adults with river blindness. Their eye disease was caused by the filaria Onchocerca volvulus Leuckart. He noticed the signs of interstitial keratitis and band keratopathy, faint iritis or iridocyclitis, posterior synechiae and often a downward distortion of the pupil. He was the first to describe chorioretinal scarring of the fundus, what became known as the Hissette-Ridley fundus. People reported to him their entoptic phenomena which he unequivocally interpreted to be the images of microfilariae in the patient's own eye. During his stay in Belgium in 1932, he elucidated the pathogenesis of blindness since he was able to provide histological proof of the presence of microfilariae in various ocular tissues of an enucleated eye from a patient living near the Sankuru river. Like other serious health impairments, the severe inflammatory lesions in the eye occurred only after the microfilariae had died. Hence he realized that dying microfilariae play a key role in the mechanisms leading to blindness. Hissette's precise descriptions were the logical fruit of his outstanding observational abilities and enabled him as a man of great intuition to speculate about causal relationships. He evidently benefited from the fact that he took the native Africans seriously and asked them their opinion. In 1933, his friend and teacher Dr. De Mets in Antwerp already wrote on Hissette's discovery in the Belgian Congo: "This study is of exceptional value to specialists which is not only a tribute to its author, but to our common native country (Belgium)."
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PMID:The significance of some observations on African ocular onchocerciasis described by Jean Hissette (1888-1965). 1854 27

Several factors acting in concert now place US residents, returning travelers, and expatriates at risks of contracting ocular filariasis including increasing seroprevalence rates of zoonotic filariasis, international travel bringing tourists to and expatriates from filariasis-endemic regions, and warming temperatures extending distribution ranges of arthropod vectors. To describe the epidemiology and outcomes of ocular filariasis and to recommend strategies for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of ocular filariasis, internet search engines were queried with the key words in order to examine case reports and series of ocular filariasis in the US and elsewhere. Descriptive epidemiological, morphological, and molecular evidence now support increasing cases of ocular filariasis in domestic and wild animals and humans, with most cases caused by filarial worms including Dirofilaria repens and other zoonotic Dirofilaria species and Onchocerca lupi and other zoonotic Onchocerca species. Clinicians should maintain early suspicion of ocular filariasis in US residents, returning travelers, and expatriates who complain of combinations of red eye, eye pain, foreign body sensation, reduced visual acuity, and migrating ocular worms, even without significant peripheral eosinophilia or microfilaremia. Microfilariae of Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi, and O. volvulus may traverse the eye, but can usually be treated medically. Mobile adult worms trapped in the subconjunctiva or anterior chamber should be removed by ophthalmologists to permit species identification, prevent posterior uveitis and iritis, and stop worm migration into the posterior chamber which could require lens removal and vitrectomy for worm extraction causing further eye damage.
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PMID:Ocular Filariasis in US Residents, Returning Travelers, and Expatriates. 2715 10