Korean J Parasitol.  2013 Jun;51(3):343-347. 10.3347/kjp.2013.51.3.343.

Gnathostoma spinigerum Infection in the Upper Lip of a Korean Woman: An Autochthonous Case in Korea

• Kim JH
• Lim H
• Hwang YS
• Kim TY
• Han EM
• Shin EH
• Chai JY

• KMID: 1715709
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2013.51.3.343

Abstract

Autochthonous human gnathostomiasis had never been reported in the Republic of Korea. We report here a case of Gnathostoma spinigerum infection in a 32-year-old Korean woman, presumed to have been infected via an indigenous route. The patient had experienced a painful migratory swelling near the left nasolabial fold area of the face for a year, with movement of the swelling to the mucosal area of the upper lip 2 weeks before surgical removal of the lesion. Histopathological examinations of the extracted tissue revealed inflammation with heavy eosinophilic infiltrations and sections of a nematode suggestive of a Gnathostoma sp. larva. The larva characteristically revealed about 25 intestinal cells with multiple (3-6) nuclei in each intestinal cell consistent with the 3rd-stage larva of G. spinigerum. The patient did not have any special history of travel abroad except a recent trip, 4 months before surgery, to China where she ate only cooked food. The patient is the first recorded autochthonous case of G. spinigerum infection in Korea.

Keyword

Gnathostoma spinigerum; gnathostomiasis; case report; lip

MeSH Terms

Adult
Animals
Female
Gnathostoma/*classification
Gnathostomiasis/epidemiology/parasitology/*pathology/surgery
Humans
Republic of Korea/epidemiology