Ascaris Lumbricoides
Close up view.
20 cm in length!After reading what Jimbo blogged about Ascaris, here I would like to share a funny incident happened to me while I was a surgical HO in Seremban Hospital.
A young lady was admitted to the surgical ward with severe epigastric pain. Half way through the clerking, the patient vomited out a worm in front of me. It was so shocking, yet interesting, and I decided to keep it in the formalin.
I also remembered during my diploma years, I helped a lecturer in Parasitology in a project where I was assigned to counting the eggs in the faecal samples collected randomly from a population in Kampung Cherang Laut. Believe it or not, the result showed more than 90% of the population were infested with the Ascaris worm.
Interesting facts about Ascaris lumbricoides:
1. It is the largest intestinal nematode.
2. A gravid female produces 200,000 to 250,000 eggs daily.
3. The eggs are resistant to various disinfectants and can survive in the soil for many years.
The adult worm stays in the small intestine. It was believed that when the female population exceeds the male population, the female worms would migrate to other sites to find mates, causing various complications, though, worm migration may be stimulated by anesthetic agents or subtherapeutic anti-helmintic treatment or by use of certain anti-helmintic (e.g. pyrantel pamoate).
How to prevent infection?
1. Eat cooked food and avoid taking green vegetables or salads, especially in places where human faeces are used as fertilizer and where sanitary conditions are poor.
2. Deworm every 6 months with anti-helmintic.
A young lady was admitted to the surgical ward with severe epigastric pain. Half way through the clerking, the patient vomited out a worm in front of me. It was so shocking, yet interesting, and I decided to keep it in the formalin.
I also remembered during my diploma years, I helped a lecturer in Parasitology in a project where I was assigned to counting the eggs in the faecal samples collected randomly from a population in Kampung Cherang Laut. Believe it or not, the result showed more than 90% of the population were infested with the Ascaris worm.
Interesting facts about Ascaris lumbricoides:
1. It is the largest intestinal nematode.
2. A gravid female produces 200,000 to 250,000 eggs daily.
3. The eggs are resistant to various disinfectants and can survive in the soil for many years.
The adult worm stays in the small intestine. It was believed that when the female population exceeds the male population, the female worms would migrate to other sites to find mates, causing various complications, though, worm migration may be stimulated by anesthetic agents or subtherapeutic anti-helmintic treatment or by use of certain anti-helmintic (e.g. pyrantel pamoate).
How to prevent infection?
1. Eat cooked food and avoid taking green vegetables or salads, especially in places where human faeces are used as fertilizer and where sanitary conditions are poor.
2. Deworm every 6 months with anti-helmintic.
1 comment:
Yikes!!! Vomit worms!! Is this one of the migratory path out of the human body? I thought the common exist is from the anus via the feaces? How would one knows if these worms are in them?
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