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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.
In humans, A. cantonensis is the most common cause of eosinophilic meningitis or meningoencephalitis. [2] Frequently the infection will resolve without treatment or serious consequences, but in cases with a heavy load of parasites the infection can be so severe it can cause permanent damage to the central nervous system (CNS) or death.
Of solid tumor neoplasms, ovarian cancer is most likely to provoke eosinophilia, though any other cancer can cause the condition. [3] Solid epithelial cell tumors have been shown to cause both tissue and blood eosinophilia, with some reports indicating that this may be mediated by interleukin production by tumor cells, especially IL-5 or IL-3. [2]
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.
The most widely understood function of eosinophils is in association with allergy and parasitic disease processes, though their functions in other pathologies are the subject of ongoing research. [3] The opposite phenomenon, in which the number of eosinophils present in the blood is higher than normal, is known as eosinophilia.
Gongylonema pulchrum was first named and presented with its own species by Molin in 1857. The first reported case was in 1850 by Dr. Joseph Leidy, when he identified a worm "obtained from the mouth of a child" from the Philadelphia Academy (however, an earlier case may have been treated in patient Elizabeth Livingstone in the seventeenth century [2]).
Diagnosis must first rule out other causes of eosinophilia and hypereosinophilia, such as those due to allergies, drug reactions, infestations, and autoimmune diseases as well as those associated with eosinophilic leukemia, clonal eosinophilia, systemic mastocytosis, and other malignancies (see causes of eosinophilia).