Журнал бактериологии и паразитологии

Абстрактный

Ascaris lumbricoides -associated intestinal obstruction in a 12-year-old boy: a case report from Pakistan

Wali Khan, Imran and Abdul Wahab

Background: Ascariasis is a severe parasitic disease that is widespread in remote areas of Pakistan due to poor sanitation and inadequate water supply.

Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the unusual clinical presentation of severe intestinal ascariasis in a 12-year-old boy from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Methods: During hospitalization, multidisciplinary clinical and laboratory investigations were performed, including physiological and immunodiagnostic methods, assessment of socioeconomic status and imaging.

Results: A 12-year-old child was diagnosed with a case of severe intestinal ascariasis. The patient experienced headache, abdominal pain and vomiting. Preoperative diagnostics included: red blood cells below normal, white blood cells above normal. Blood, pressure, temperature and serum amylase were normal. Three days after admission to the hospital, 0.3 kg of roundworms were found in the small intestine at the site of the patient's surgical injury. Based on their morphological characteristics, the parasites were identified as Ascaris lumbricoides.

Conclusions: Ascariasis should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of irregular space-occupying lesions located in the intestine, especially in patients who live in endemic areas and whose epidemiological history indicates potential risk factors for infection. In children, appendicitis is recognized more often than in the elderly, and the clinical prognosis may be no less serious than in young patients. Early diagnosis of A. lumbricoides infection in humans allows for the selection of the correct and optimal treatment to save or significantly prolong the patient's life.