| Pentastomiasis | |
| Visceral Pentastomiasis by Armillifer spec. Tongue worms or pentastomes are possibly arthropods or are classified in a separate phylum of the helminthes. In the Armillifer spec. the definite hosts are tropical snakes. Mammals are the intermediate host . The worm eggs may be ingested by humans who consider snake meat a delicacy or who are exposed to their excrements. Larvae penetrate the intestinal wall and attach to or enter into various sites including lungs, brain and eye. There they transform to nymphs that encapsulate. In human tissue they do generally not survive. While alive they cause little changes. When dead they give rise to a foreign body reaction and may calcify. – Below a biopsy of the conjunctiva from a young child in central Ghana. It shows remnants of a dead nymph, namely an almost empty cyst (left) The cuticle can still be seen. It consists of chitin and is surrounded by dense inflammatory infiltrates (right). | |
| Schmauz, Rolf, Dr.med., Pathologist in general practice, Papenburg, Ems, Germany | |
| B88.9 | |
| Systemerkrankungen -> Infectious Disease -> Parasitic Diseases | |
| 6619 |
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