Fasciolopsiasis

Fasciolopsiasis
Eggs of Fasciolopsis buski
Classification and external resources
Specialty	infectious disease
ICD-10	B66.5
ICD-9-CM	121.4
MeSH	D014201
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Fasciolopsiasis results from an infection by the trematode Fasciolopsis buski, the largest intestinal fluke of humans (up to 7.5 cm in length).

Most infections are light and asymptomatic. In heavy infections, symptoms can include abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, anemia, ascites, toxemia, allergic responses, sensitization caused by the absorption of the worms' allergenic metabolites (may eventually cause death of patient), and intestinal obstruction.

Microscopic identification of eggs, or more rarely of the adult flukes, in the stool or vomitus is the basis of specific diagnosis. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of of the very closely related Fasciola hepatica liver fluke, but that is largely inconsequential since treatment is essentially identical for both.

The parasite infects an amphibic snail (Segmentina nitidella, Segmentina hemisphaerula, Hippeutis schmackerie, Gyraulus, Lymnaea, Pila, Planorbis (Indoplanorbis)) after being released by infected mammalian feces; metacercaria released from this intermediate host encyst on aquatic plants like water spinach, which are eaten raw by pigs and humans. Water itself can also be infective when drunk unheated ("Encysted cercariae exist not only on aquatic plants, but also on the surface of the water.")

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