Delayed Diagnosis of Dirofilariasis and Complex Ocular Surgery, Russia

Genetic diversity of Dirofilaria spp. isolated from subcutaneous and ocular lesions of human patients in Ukraine

“…Here, we only analyzed subcutaneous and ocular affected patients. The proportion of patients was slightly higher for the ocular location in accordance with previous analysis in the region (Avdiukhina et al, 1996;Iliasov et al, 2013;Sałamatin et al, 2013).…”

“…The epidemiological situation in animals was assessed in the Rostov region of Russia close to Ukraine, showing that around 20% of dogs tested positive in the Knott test for Dirofilaria (Kartashev et al, 2011 (Iliasov et al, 2013;Kartashev et al, 2011;Sałamatin et al, 2013;Simón et al, 2012). Here, we only analyzed subcutaneous and ocular affected patients.…”

“…Around 4000 human cases have been reported worldwide, 3500 of which have been diagnosed in Europe, most of them in Ukraine and the Russian Federation during the last 10 years (Kartashev et al, 2014;Sałamatin et al, 2013). Ocular cases are the most frequently reported, making up 35% of the human cases described worldwide (Genchi et al, 2011b) and more than 40% of the cases found in Ukraine and the Russian Federation (Avdiukhina et al, 1996;Iliasov et al, 2013).…”

Thirty cases of human subcutaneous dirofilariasis reported in Rostov-on-Don (Southwestern Russian Federation)

“…Ocular location is by far the most frequent, a fact that is in agreement with the high incidence of ocular cases reported in Russia as reviewed by Avdiukhina et al 18 Two of these cases appeared in retroocular location, having been one of them separately published to communicate this new anatomical location of D. repens. 9 Because of the repetition of this presentation, it is necessary to warn the physicians about the possibility to find nodules in this anatomical location in the future. The frequency of genital location in our series (13.3%) is twice that found by Pampiglione and Rivasi 17 and appeared mostly in adolescents.…”

“…7 In addition live, fully developed adult worms can lodge in intraocular and retroocular locations, causing considerable damages and discomfort in patients by themselves or as a consequence of their surgical removal. 8,9 Diagnosis of human subcutaneous dirofilariosis raises important procedure problems because of the initial suspicion of a malignant origin of the nodules and the very frequent absence of parasite larvae (microfilariae) in the blood of patients. 4 Thus, most cases are diagnosed by histology and morphological and/or molecular analysis, subsequent to the surgical removal of the whole cysts or the worm themselves.…”