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

Eosinophilic meningitis is due to infestation of the nervous system by the larvae of Angiostrongylus cantonensis. The infection is from infected prawns and slugs. In a study of 54 patients from Tahiti the leading symptoms were headaches, neck stiffness, limb pains and sometimes a facial palsy. The diagnosis is made by examination of the CSF when the leucocytes are usually over 100/mm3 and over half are eosinophilic cells. The blood eosinophil count is often raised, above 400/mm3. The disease is self-limiting and there is no known specific treatment.
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PMID:Eosinophilic meningitis in Tahiti: clinical study of 54 patients. 28 29

The results of the use of praziquantel (PZQ) for the etiologic treatment of neurocysticercosis (NC) are presented. The drug was administered to 45 patients (24 women and 21 men) at increasing doses of 10 to 50 mg/kg/day during the first week and with maintenance on the last dose for two additional weeks, preferentially for patients that presented intraparenchymatous cystic lesions in the computed axial tomography. Follow-up ranged from 8 months to 4 years and a half (median, 2.7 years). During PZQ administration 27 patients (60%) presented side effects which required interruption of treatment in three cases. Decompensation of the increased ICP occurred in two cases (one of them fatal). Exacerbation of CSF pleocytosis occurred in 26 patients (57.7%). Evaluation of the results of PZQ treatment showed a lower clinical-laboratory rate of success than reported in the literature. The most appropriate indications for the use of PZQ are discussed on the basis of the present data and of reports by other investigators. In view of the risks and fallibility of treatment with PZQ, the solution of NC resides in the prevention of infestation.
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PMID:[Neurocysticercosis. II. Evaluation of treatment with praziquantel]. 219 59

Neurocysticercosis (NCC) in Spain remains localized in well-defined endemic areas. Due to massive immigration from these rural areas toward urban outskirts under expanding industrialization during the 1960s and the widespread used of CT-scan, a relatively large number of NCC cases were subsequently detected in some hospitals in Madrid, reportedly with a trend towards decline from 1970 onwards. We carried-out an estimation on the frequency of this disease covering a 10-year period (1980-1989) by tracing all suspected diagnosis of NCC by CT-scan in Madrid General Hospital, one of the largest centers in this city covering some 672,351 people. Thirteen cases fulfilling diagnostic criteria for NCC has been seen by different clinical services for the past 10 years, mostly by neurologists. The patients were evenly distributed along the study period. Eleven patients were Spaniards, and all but two were born in geographic areas recognized as endemic for the disorder, mainly Castilla, Extremadura and Andalucia. At least 38 per cent of the patients were detected by CT-scans performed for unrelated conditions. Only 5 patients were considered to be suffering from active CNS infestation on the basis of CSF pleocytosis, immune CSF reactions for NCC or both. Most cases were adults or aged individuals (mean age, 46 years) but the only two Spanish adolescents were born in Madrid city. Two patients were of Hispanic origin (Chili and Venezuela), comprising some 25 per cent of all NCC seen for the past five years.
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PMID:[Frequency of neurocysticercosis at a hospital in Madrid (1980-1989)]. 263 49

More than 8000 samples (sera, cord blood, CSF, etc.) from patients who had, or were likely to have, toxoplasmosis were studied by the CIP-ELIFA technique. The first stage in this technique is immunoelectrodiffusion on a microporous cellulose acetate membrane. In the second stage, immunodetection and isotypic characterization of the precipitating systems are rapidly carried out by immunofiltration with anti-IgG, IgM, IgA or IgE-labelled antibodies (enzyme-linked immunofiltration assay or ELIFA). Several samples are jointly laid out on the same membrane for compared immunological profiles (CIP). When applied to the mother-foetus relationship in toxoplasmosis, this procedure provides an early diagnosis of congenital infestation in 85% of the cases. Positive criteria are based on evidence of specific IgM, IgE or IgA in the child, but also on the detection of foetal or neonatal antitoxoplasmosis IgG which can be distinguished from the IgG transmitted by the mother. Polyisotypic supervision is of considerable value for assessment of prognosis and of therapeutic effectiveness at the end of treatment. Satisfactory isotypic characterization can only be achieved by using particular functional antigens.
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PMID:[Early diagnosis and surveillance of congenital toxoplasmosis. The comparative immunological profiles method]. 295 70

The differential diagnosis of CSF eosinophilia consists primarily of infection, infestation or malignancy. This report describes an eight-year-old patient with a ventriculoperitoneal shunt who presented with a two-year history of episodic headache and vomiting and persistent tenderness of the skin overlying the bulb of the shunt. Ventricular CSF showed persisting eosinophilia, but there was no evidence of infection or malignancy. All abnormalities resolved promptly after the shunt was replaced.
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PMID:Eosinophilia of the cerebrospinal fluid: late reaction to a silastic shunt. 340 81

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

We reviewed the clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment in 127 cases of cysticercosis cerebri. The chief syndromes were seizures (55.1%), hydrocephalus (37.8%), and stroke (11.8%). Serum or CSF indirect hemagglutination titers, determined in 101 patients, were positive in 84.1% of those with CSF pleocytosis but in only 42.1% of those without. Computed tomography (CT), employed in 85 patients, showed typical multiple calcifications in 64.7%. The CT scans were most useful in the surgical treatment of ventriculomeningeal infestation. Ventricular shunt implantation was performed in 40 patients with hydrocephalus and produced marked improvement in 32. Cyst resection was necessary only for patients with rapidly enlarging fourth ventricle cysts.
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PMID:Cysticercosis cerebri. Review of 127 cases. 711 41

In BALB/c mice repeatedly infested with nymphal Ixodes ricinus ticks, lymphocytes from axillary and brachial lymph nodes which drain the tick attachment site produced significant levels of IL-2, TNF-alpha and GM-CSF when stimulated in vitro with Con A or anti-CD3 antibodies. Cytokine production by cells from lymph nodes of the opposite flank was equivalent to that of cells from uninfested mice. Nine days after the first infestation and IL-2, GM-CSF were produced primarily by the CD4+ T cells, while some other cell types contributed also to the TNF-alpha production. In mice repeatedly infested, a gradual increase of lymph node cell production of IL-2 was observed. The IL-2 levels regularly increased from the first to the third infestation compared to TNF-alpha levels which gradually decreased. The in vitro production of GM-CSF was not affected by successive infestations. Spleen lymphocytes from naive mice produced higher levels of IL-2 than lymphocytes from axillary and brachial lymph nodes. Both tick salivary gland extracts and D-mannose inhibited IL-2 production by these lymphocytes.
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PMID:Cytokine production by lymph node cells from mice infested with Ixodes ricinus ticks and the effect of tick salivary gland extracts on IL-2 production. 884 33

Neurocysticercosis is the most frequently observed parasitosis of the central nervous system worldwide. The fourth ventricle is the most frequent site of intraventricular infestation, a location that carries a higher risk for CSF blockage and intracranial hypertension due to CSF blockage. A great number of patients become shunt dependent which carries a poorer prognosis. We report on a case of a patient with symptomatic obstructive hydrocephalus due to cysticercus in the fourth ventricle where an endoscopic approach via a frontal burr hole was performed. Although there is no consensus in the literature for the optimal treatment of this disease, this method seemed adequate for treatment of fourth ventricle cysticercosis in patients with hydrocephalus, aqueductal and foramen of Monro dilatations.
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PMID:Endoscopic approach to fourth ventricle cysticercosis. 1280 98

Neurocysticercosis, caused by infestation of the nervous system by the larval form of Taenia solium, continues to baffle the neurologist, because of varied clinical manifestations. A large body of the literature related to this disease is clinically oriented, enough attention has not been given to parasite related factors modulating the host response. Using immunohistochemical techniques, three features related to the biology of the Cysticercus cellulosa e were studied. Firstly, to the question as to which part of the worm is recognised by the host immune system, the surface glycoprotein is found to be immunolabelled by the CSF from patients of neurocysticercosis. This surface protein is depleted following specific antihelmenthic therapy, thus accounting for a fall in anticysticercal antibosy level in the CSF. Secondly, the cysticercal cyst, by immunochemical and histochemical methods, is found to have "ACTH like" molecule in the body wall and has neurotransmitter and mitochondrial metabolic pathways similar to the host, facilitating the immune evasion and successful parasitisation. Finally, Cysticercus cellulosae is found to contain a "peptide" opening the blood brain barrier at the arteriolar level when injected into mice intravenously. Similar phenomenon may be functional in the patients as well, resulting in cerebral oedema, especially following praziquintel therapy.
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PMID:BIOLOGY OF NEUROCYSTICERCOSIS - PARASITE RELATED FACTORS MODULATING HOST RESPONSE. 2876 74


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