About 1 month before being hospitalized, a 31-year-old man (from Dien Bien ) went to visit a friend in Lai Chau province and ate raw crab salad. After more than 2 weeks, the patient showed signs of fatigue, weight loss, nausea, and difficulty breathing, weakness, and coughing when exerting himself. The patient went to the doctor but no illness was found.
At Bach Mai Hospital ( Hanoi ), a young man was admitted with pleural effusion/pneumothorax.
Male patient hospitalized after 1 month of eating raw crab salad
The doctor ordered a test to find worms and the results showed that the patient was positive for the Paragonimus parasite (lung fluke). After treatment with anti-worm medicine, the patient's health gradually stabilized.
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Do Duy Cuong, Director of the Center for Tropical Diseases (Bach Mai Hospital), lung flukes can occur at any age, often in some northern mountainous provinces such as Dien Bien, Lai Chau , Son La... which are localities with the habit of eating raw shrimp and crab (eating salad or grilled dishes but not cooked). Lung fluke larvae, after entering the human body through the digestive tract, will penetrate through the wall of the small intestine, into the abdominal cavity. Then, they penetrate the diaphragm to the lungs and exist in the lung parenchyma.
Lung flukes are parasites that can cause disease in any part of the body such as: lungs, brain, spinal cord, chest muscles, subcutaneous tissue, spleen, greater omentum, abdomen, pericardium, myocardium, mediastinum, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, testicles, ureters, etc. The main place where the parasites occur is in the lungs.
Adult lung flukes will lay eggs and the eggs will be passed out with the sputum or the person swallows the sputum, the eggs will go down the digestive tract to pass out with the stool. The eggs fall into the water, then the eggs hatch into ciliate larvae, the larvae will penetrate snails and then parasitize crabs and shrimps. After a while, the patient will have chest pain, prolonged cough, cough up bloody sputum, lose weight and lead to exhaustion, even death.
However, according to Associate Professor Cuong, because of the symptoms of coughing up blood and chest pain, many people misdiagnose other diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, or lung tumors. Therefore, if symptoms such as prolonged cough, shortness of breath, cough, chest pain appear, it is necessary to order the patient to test for worms to avoid confusion with other lung diseases.
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