Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a nematode (roundworm) parasite that causes angiostrongyliasis, an infection that is the most common cause of eosinophilic meningitis in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin. [3] The nematode commonly resides in the pulmonary arteries of rats, giving it the common name rat lungworm. [4]
If the cause is unknown, it is specified and called "simple pulmonary eosinophilia". Cardiac damage caused by the damaging effects of eosinophil granule proteins (e.g. major basic protein ) is known as Loeffler endocarditis and can be caused by idiopathic eosinophilia or eosinophilia in response to parasitic infection.
Eosinophilic pneumonia is a rare disease. Parasitic causes are most common in geographic areas where each parasite is endemic. Acute eosinophilic pneumonia can occur at any age, even in previously healthy children, though most patients are between 20 and 40 years of age. Men are affected approximately twice as frequently as women.
But, perhaps the most common cause for eosinophilia is an allergic condition such as asthma. In 1989, contaminated L-tryptophan supplements caused a deadly form of eosinophilia known as eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, which was reminiscent of the toxic oil syndrome in Spain in 1981.
Based on their causes, hypereosinophilias can be sorted into subtypes. However, cases of eosinophilia, which exhibit eosinophil counts between 500 and 1,500/μL, may fit the clinical criteria for, and thus be regarded as falling into, one of these hypereosinophilia categories: the cutoff of 1,500/μL between hypereosinophilia and eosinophilia is somewhat arbitrary.
In long-established disease, adult worms lay eggs that can cause inflammatory reactions. The eggs secrete proteolytic enzymes that help them migrate to the bladder and intestines to be shed. The enzymes also cause an eosinophilic inflammatory reaction when eggs get trapped in tissues or embolize to the liver, spleen, lungs, or brain. [16]
The significance of this approach is that, if the white blood cells in the small intestine have been exposed to Trichinella antigens (through vaccination) when an individual does get infected, the immune system will respond to expel the worms from the small intestine fast enough to prevent the female worms from releasing their larvae.
Tropical pulmonary eosinophilia is a rare syndrome characterised by pulmonary interstitial infiltrates and marked peripheral eosinophilia. [2] This condition is more widely recognised and promptly diagnosed in filariasis-endemic regions, such as the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Asia and South America.