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Query: UMLS:C0851341 (infestation)
 10,121 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Cerebral cysticercosis is a parasitic infestation with a highly variable prognosis and diverse clinical manifestations. Over the period of two years 51 patients were studied prospectively with this infestation, paying particular attention to the duration and severity of the illness, clinical course, CT findings and therapeutic modalities. Patients with parenchymal cysts or calcification without hydrocephalus had a benign disorder presenting commonly with seizures. This type of infestation usually is long-standing, almost never requires surgical treatment, responds to praziquantel therapy and has a good prognosis. In contrast, patients who present with hydrocephalus, large supratentorial cysts, multiple granulomata with cerebral oedema or with vasculitis and cerebral infarction, have an aggressive, acute or subacute illness, presenting with raised intracranial pressure, gait disturbances, mental changes, seizures, cranial nerve palsies, hemisphere syndromes, chronic meningitis and stroke. This malignant form usually requires surgical therapy, does not respond to praziquantel and may produce a fatal outcome or serious sequelae.
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PMID:A prognostic classification of cerebral cysticercosis: therapeutic implications. 378 74

Cerebral cysticercosis is the result of infestation of the brain with the larval stage of the intestinal tape worm Taenia Solium. The disease, endemic in some parts of the world, especially Mexico, South America, India, Eastern Europe, is still encountered practically all over the world. There appear to be distinct geographical variations not only in the incidence but also the pattern of the disease. The commonly accepted modes of infection do not stand a critical analysis of available epidemiological data. The brain is a site of predilection for this infestation, where it results in meningeal racemose, parenchymatous ventricular or mixed types of lesions. It may thus produce meningo-encephalitis, granulomatous meningitis, ependymitis , focal granulomas, solitary or multiple parenchymatous cysts, hydrocephalus or a combination of these. Clinically its manifestations are protean and often perplexing, consisting, either alone or in combination, of raised intracranial pressure, focal or multifocal or generalized epileptic seizures, signs and symptoms of a focal mass lesion, hydrocephalus or chronic meningo-encephalitis. Important features of the disease are remissions and recurrences. Laboratory diagnostic investigations are generally unrewarding, there being so far, no single completely reliable test. Recent CAT scan studies have been helpful but not always diagnostic. There is no known medical treatment. Excision of a solitary parenchymatous or intraventricular lesion provides gratifying results but the management of diffuse lesions, presenting with raised intracranial pressure ("pseudo-tumour") is often frustrating. Extensive bilateral decompression, with or without an additional thecoperitoneal shunt, is helpful in some of these cases.
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PMID:Cerebral cysticercosis. 637 90

Parasitological examinations of the cerebrospinal fluid of 20 vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops), that had been infected with Trypanosoma rhodesiense, revealed that the CSF was regularly infested with trypanosomes in the early phase of the disease, at the earliest on the 13th day, in most of the animals in the 3rd or 4th week, after infection. Follow-up examinations of the CSF during the further course of the disease also regularly proved positive for trypanosomes. Histological studies in the animals that died at a mean of 65 days after infection (range 35 to 107 days) revealed encephalitis in the animal with the longest course of the disease. In all the other animals, meningitis alone was found. This was accompanied by a modified early encephalitic reaction, characterized by lympho-plasma-cellular infiltrates exclusively in the adventitial sheaths of those blood vessels passing into the brain from the leptomeninges affected by inflammatory infiltration. The early encephalitic reaction is interpreted as the morphological manifestation of an infestation of the perivascular spaces (Virchow-Robin spaces) with parasites. It indicates that CSF parasitosis in the early phase represents the point of departure for the encephalitis that develops in the late phase of the disease, and that the encephalitis presumably develops as a result of the migration of the trypanosomes out of the subarachnoid space into the perivascular spaces, and from there into the brain.
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PMID:The pathogenesis of trypanosomiasis of the CNS. Studies on parasitological and neurohistological findings in trypanosoma rhodesiense infected vervet monkeys. 640 89

A case of chronic cerebrospinal meningitis is described which caused considerable diagnostic difficulties. Postmortem examination demonstrated parasitic character of the disease. Although all cysts were sterile, the authors suggest in the discussion that in the case the cause was infestation with the larval from of the canine tapeworm Taenia multiceps.
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PMID:[A case of the acinous form of meningeal cysticercosis]. 648 82

The cases of 11 patients with hydrocephalus secondary to cerebral cysticercosis are analyzed. Most of the patients had suffered from epilepsy before they developed hydrocephalic symptoms, and computerized tomography showed that infestation of the parenchyma coexisted with ventricular or cisternal colonization. In four cases, the parasitic vesicles compromised cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow in the ventricular system, resulting in internal hydrocephalus. Communicating hydrocephalus, caused by the presence of Cysticercus larvae in the basal cisterns (Cysticercus racemosus), or by the occurrence of a chronic basal meningitis, or both, developed in seven more patients. Changes in CSF pressure were related to the number and location of the cysts and to the leptomeningeal inflammatory reactions evoked by them. The majority of patients presented with a chronic and relatively normotensive hydrocephalus. All patients except one had identifiable ventricular or cisternal Cysticercus larvae; these patients were treated with open removal of the cysts, and did well. However, most of them had impairment of CSF flow through the basal cisterns and required permanent CSF shunting. Communicating hydrocephalus due to leptomeningeal scarring was also successfully managed with extracranial shunting. Epilepsy was controlled with anticonvulsant therapy. Although good lasting results may be obtained with aggressive treatment of neurocysticercosis, patients are liable to relapse because surgery is only palliative in most instances.
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PMID:Hydrocephalus in cerebral cysticercosis. Pathogenic and therapeutic considerations. 731 May 1

Cases of human infestation by Fasciola hepatica are not uncommon in Spain and other European countries. We report our experience with 20 patients diagnosed from 1982 to 1991 and present a critical review of published cases from western countries. Because F. hepatica has a special tropism for the liver, abdominal pain, hepatomegaly, and constitutional symptoms are among the most common manifestations of acute-stage fascioliasis. However, in the chronic stage, biliary colic and cholangitis are the predominant manifestations. The clinical spectrum of fascioliasis is variable, and patients may present with extrahepatic abnormalities, such as pulmonary infiltrates, pleuropericarditis, meningitis, or lymphadenopathy. Therefore, a high index of suspicion is required to establish a correct diagnosis. Eosinophilia is the most frequent laboratory abnormality. The CT scan has become a useful technique in the diagnostic work-up. A definitive diagnosis may be established by the observation of parasite ova in the feces, but most cases may be diagnosed by serologic methods. Triclabendazole and bithionol are the most effective drugs against F. hepatica. The efficacy of praziquantel is controversial.
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PMID:Fascioliasis in developed countries: a review of classic and aberrant forms of the disease. 783 67

Toxocariasis as a helminth zoonatroponosis is very common in dogs in our region, thus the infestation of human population, especially children, is frequent, 59 children with high blood eosinophilia, aged 18 months to 14 years, were examined on toxocariasis by indirect immunofluorescence test, 23 children were positive, with antibody titre 1:20-640. Dominant symptoms and signs were cough, allergic exantemas, lymphadenopathy and leucocytosis. One child had eosinophilic meningitis. Some of these children were addicted to geophagia, particularly those with clinical picture corresponding to toxocariasis. The original antigen for the indirect immunofluorescent antibody assay was made of mice brains previously infected with high dose of toxocara larvae (6000 per mouse). Two or three months later, mice were sacrificed and their brains were fixed and included in paraffin wax. Histological sections were used as antigen for titration of patient's serum samples. Authors conclude that all eosinophilias in children should be examined serologically for toxocariasis.
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PMID:[The role of toxocariasis in the etiology of hypereosinophilic syndrome in children]. 799

The cysticercosis is an infestation caused from the larva of Taenia solium, which is demoniated Cysticercus cellulosae. Infestation by the encysted forms occur within brain, muscle, cutis, eye and more rarely within kidney, liver, thyroid. The cysties cause inflammation, oedema and residual calcification. In the SNC they are responsible for seizures, usually of focal type, hydrocephalus, meningitis, endocranic hypertension, stroke. One case of neurocysticercosis in a 15 years old boy is described: the clinical pictures, the neuroradiologic images and the treatment are discussed.
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PMID:[Neurocysticercosis: a rare cause of convulsive crises]. 866 97

In a 2-year-old Bernese Mountain dog the diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis was made, using the criteria that are mentioned in the literature: seropositivity in the presence of the typical clinical symptoms, with infestation of ticks in the history. The usual therapy of amoxycillin or tetracyclines was inadequate and did not resolve the clinical symptoms, possibly as a result of a combination of initial corticosteroid therapy, the clinical presentation of the disease (mainly meningitis), and a presumed immuno-incompetence often seen in this breed. Intravenous treatment with amoxycillin finally led to total cure of the disease. Lyme borreliosis recurred half a year later, presumably as a result of a new tick infestation. A review of the literature on Lyme borreliosis in humans and dogs is presented. The fact that Lyme borreliosis in dogs in the Netherlands has not been diagnosed often and has not been reported before may be due to differences in approach to human and canine patients with fever.
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PMID:[Lyme borreliosis in dogs]. 901 11

Neurocysticercosis is the most common parasitic infestation involving the central nervous system in tropical countries. Common presentations are seizure, meningitis and increased intracranial pressure. The authors report a case of a 52-year-old woman with racemose neurocysticercosis in the subarachnoid space at the cistern of the brain through the lumbar cistern. She presented with progressive paraparesis due to spinal cord compression and finally had progressive bilateral sensori-neural hearing loss. MRI brain and the whole spinal cord revealed numerous rim-enhancing cystic lesions at the basal cistern, prepontine cistern, bilateral cerebellopontine angle, internal acoustic canals, intramedullary lesion at the 5th cervical spinal level, lumbar cistern lesions and secondary syringomyelia at the thoracic spinal cord. The histopathologic examination confirmed cysticercosis. After treatment by albendazole and surgical removal, she still developed recurrent spinal compression at a higher level and obstructive hydrocephalus. Finally, she died from status epilepticus and septic shock.
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PMID:Spinal cord compression and bilateral sensory neural hearing loss: an unusual manifestation of neurocysticercosis. 1556 Jul 5


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