ascariasis
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Key facts
- Medical condition.caption
- High number of ascaris worms – visible as black tangled mass – are filling the duodenum, the first portion of the bowel after the stomach, of this South African patient (X-ray image with barium as contrast medium).
- Medical condition.field
- Infectious disease
- Medical condition.symptoms
- Abdominal swelling, abdominal pain, diarrhea, shortness of breath
- Medical condition.causes
- Ingestion of Ascaris eggs
- Medical condition.prevention
- Improved sanitation, handwashing
- Medical condition.medication
- Albendazole, mebendazole, levamisole, pyrantel pamoate
- Medical condition.frequency
- 762 million (2015)
- Medical condition.deaths
- 2,700 (2015)
- Medical condition.name
- Ascariasis
- Medical condition.image
- Ascaris infection in X-ray image- Duedenal worms - in the first portion of the bowel after the stomach (South Africa) (16238958958).jpg
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
27 sectionsContents
- Signs and symptoms
- Migrating larvae
- Intestinal blockage
- Bowel obstruction
- Allergies
- Malnutrition
- Others
- Cause
- Transmission
- Lifecycle
- Mechanism
- Diagnosis
- Prevention
- Treatment
- Medications
- Other medications
- Surgery
- Prognosis
- Epidemiology
- Regions
- Infection estimates
- Deaths
- Research
- Other animals
- Society and culture
- References
- External links
Ascariasis is a disease caused by the parasitic roundworm Ascaris lumbricoides. Infections have no symptoms in more than 85% of cases, especially if the number of worms is small. Symptoms increase with the number of worms present and may include shortness of breath and fever at the beginning of the disease. These may be followed by symptoms of abdominal swelling, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Children are most commonly affected, and in this age group the infection may also cause poor weight gain, malnutrition, and learning problems.
Infection occurs by ingesting food or drink contaminated with Ascaris eggs from feces. The eggs hatch in the intestines, the larvae burrow through the gut wall, and migrate to the lungs via the blood. There they break into the alveoli and pass up the trachea, where they are coughed up and may be swallowed. The larvae then pass through the stomach a second time into the intestine, where they become adult worms. It is a type of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and part of a group of diseases called helminthiases.