4%–7%, in farmers) have been reported in the same areas.9 In several European countries, treatments with injectable or pour-on ivermectin formulations have been used for nationwide control of cattle hypodermosis (reviewed by Boulard et al.10), resulting in the reduction of the prevalence of infection to just 0.5%. Indeed, in the UK, Ireland, and Denmark cattle hypodermosis has been eradicated.

Consequently, the number of reports of human infestation by Hypoderma spp. has been greatly reduced.11 However, the increasing movement of people around the world, in particular, to and from developing countries, can expose travelers to these “exotic” pathogens now. This paper reports a case of imported human hypodermosis in a European man Crizotinib cell line returning from northern India. The patient showed severe symptoms that clinically resembled those of other parasitoses, leading to initial misdiagnoses of lymphatic filariasis, www.selleckchem.com/products/abt-199.html gnathostomiasis, and sparganosis. The surgical extraction of larvae suggested a diagnosis of a probable myiasis although it was not until an anti-Hypoderma enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was performed that the diagnosis was confirmed. The causal agent was identified as Hypoderma

sinense by molecular methods. The patient was a 34-year-old Spanish man who had traveled to Ladakh, a mountainous area in northern India, as a tourist guide in August 2006. Goats and yaks are raised in the area. In October 2006, the patient started to notice discomfort and abdominal pain. One month later he began suffering from painful inflammation in the right groin and testicular region. The patient was initially treated at a hospital

in Madrid, where he was subjected to ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations. These revealed inflammation of the right spermatic cord ZD1839 research buy plus iliac and inguinal adenopathy. The patient also showed notable eosinophilia (5,100 eosinophils/µL, 31.2%). Day and night blood microfilariae level tests returned negative results, as performed by filarial-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR), tests for faecal and urinary parasites, and parasitic (filariasis, trichinellosis, toxocariasis, anisakiasis, strongyloidosis), bacterial (brucellosis, salmonellosis, tuberculin, urinary mycobacterium), and viral [human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)] serological tests. In spite of the laboratory results, lymphatic filariasis was suspected, and the patient was treated with albendazole (a single dose of 400 mg) and diethylcarbamazine (6 mg/kg/d/15 d) plus prednisone (60 mg/d/5 d). After beginning the prednisone treatment, the eosinophil count decreased significantly to 100/µL (0.4%), only to increase again to 2,590/µL (21.1%) once the treatment was suspended. In January 2007, the patient was referred to the Hospital Carlos III, Madrid, by this time with a swollen left thigh.