Hand palm sparganosis: morphologically and genetically confirmed Spirometra erinaceieuropaei in a fourteen-year-old girl, Egypt.

Abstract

Two spargana of 5 and 7 cm long were removed from the right-hand palm of 14-year-old girl at the General Hospital, Qalyubia, Egypt. Sparganum is the 2nd larval stage (pleurocercoid) of Diphyllobothrid cestode species develops in the vertebrate second intermediate host through ingestion of the crustacean first intermediate host.Dogs and cats are the final hosts get infected through predation of the second vertebrate host.Human attracts infection through drinking water contaminated with the infected crustacean host or consumption of the flesh of of vertebrate hosts such as frogs and reptilian species. The surgically removed specimens were parsitologically identified as a non-proliferative metacestodes of a spirometran species that then on molecular analysis proved to be Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. The present report has allocated Egypt on the world sparganosis map.Molecular characterization of 28 S rRNA of S. erinaceieuropae and correlation to other Spirometra spp. from the Nile countries, particularly Ethiopia and Lake Victoria countries where the Nile waters originate, and from China were dealt with. Drinking of contaminated fresh water is the only proposed mode of infection in Egypt.