Be wary of lung fluke

An overseas Vietnamese in Laos came to visit his hometown, went to hospital at Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy with symptoms of coughing, spitting out sputum and blood. At first, the patient was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, but after monitoring the treatment results, the patient was found to be infected with lung fluke, a rare disease in the central provinces of Vietnam. So how is lung fluke disease?

The fluke is a disease in which humans and many other animals such as dogs, cats, pigs, tigers, leopards, wolves, foxes, weasels, rats . can become infected. People can be infected with lung fluke and the life of parasitic flukes lasts from 6 to 16 years.
Lungs are where parasites are often parasitic but there are also cases of parasitic flukes in the skin, peritoneum, pleura, liver, intestines, testes, brain . If parasites are in the brain, patients often have seizures. sutra.

How does lung fluke develop?

Lung fluke (photo www.moh.gov.vn)

Adult flukes lay eggs in the bronchi, eggs are expelled out of sputum by spitting patients into the surrounding environment and continue to develop in the intermediate host of diseases such as snails, crabs and shrimp. Flukes eggs after a while in the water, usually 16 days (hot season) and 60 days (cold season) will develop into hairy larvae. The larvae get out of the egg and look for snails to parasite. After invading the snail, the hairy larvae develop into the cell wall and become tail larvae. The tail larva has a pointed part in the head and can swim in the water to find parasites in crabs and freshwater shrimp, the second intermediate host of lung fluke. In crabs, shrimp, lung fluke larvae are parasites in the form of follicles in the chest muscles. After 45-54 days of entering crabs, shrimp, follicles can potentially infect humans. If people eat crabs, grilled shrimps, have not been cooked, there are cysts of lung fluke, lung fluke larvae will reach the small intestine, go through the gastrointestinal tract to the abdominal cavity, stay in the abdominal cavity about 30 days and then going through the pleura one by one, growing up into the adult parasitic wall of the lung.

The development of lung fluke.(Photo moh.gov.vn, Sk & DS)

What are the symptoms of lung fluke?

The first symptom of lung fluke is a cough patient who spits sputum mixed with blood. Then the cough becomes chronic and people often cough a lot early in the morning. Sputum coughs often have a rusty color like pneumonia, and sometimes the patient coughs up blood. The clinical situation is very similar to tuberculosis. Lung screenings also often show images like cases of tuberculosis. Patients with adult flukes parasite in other organs, the clinical symptoms are quite complicated, if the parasite flukes in the brain often cause seizures, if liver parasites often cause pressure - liver car.

Lungs in the crabs (vietnamnet photo)

Determination of pulmonary fluke is often based on clinical symptoms like tuberculosis, but sputum tests do not detect TB bacteria. The patient did not lose weight quickly and no fever occurred in the afternoon like tuberculosis. However, lung fluke may be associated with tuberculosis and in these cases it is difficult to identify the disease based on clinical evidence. In order to accurately diagnose lung fluke, it is necessary to rely on test results. If sputum tests detect lung fluke eggs can be confirmed with certainty, in the sputum the Charcot Leyden crystals can be seen. For children, sputum does not spit out, but children often swallow phlegm into the esophagus and gastrointestinal tract, so testing for feces can find lung fluke eggs in the stool. In addition, other support measures can be used to confirm the diagnosis of diseases such as lung film capture, immune response test .

Treatment and prevention

The treatment of lung fluke by praziquantel must be closely monitored and monitored by physicians because contraindications are used for some subjects and may have unwanted effects. After 3-4 weeks of treatment, sputum smear and negative test results are considered as patients who have cured. Testing is required 3 times in 3 consecutive days to accurately assess the standard of cure.

Prevention of lung fluke requires active treatment of sick people, strict management and good treatment of sputum, stool discharged by patients to prevent pathogens from spreading to the community. Organizing health education and communication, mobilizing people to absolutely not eat raw, baked or un-cooked freshwater shrimp and crabs.