Disease
Many people infected are usually asymptomatic at first. Symptoms include dermatitis: swelling, itching, larva currens, and mild hemorrhage at the site where the skin has been penetrated. If the parasite reaches the lungs, the chest may feel as if it is burning, and wheezing and coughing may result, along with pneumonia-like symptoms (Löffler's syndrome). The intestines could eventually be invaded, leading to burning pain, tissue damage, sepsis, and ulcers. In severe cases, edema may result in obstruction of the intestinal tract, as well as loss of peristaltic contractions.
Strongyloidiasis in immunocompetent individuals is usually an indolent disease. However, in immunocompromised individuals, it can cause a hyperinfective syndrome (also called disseminated strongyloidiasis) due to the reproductive capacity of the parasite inside the host. This hyperinfective syndrome can have a mortality rate close to 90% if disseminated.
Immunosuppressive drugs, such as those used for tissue transplantation (especially corticosteroids) can increase the rate of autoinfection to the point where an overwhelming number of larvae migrate through the lungs, which in many cases can prove fatal. In addition, diseases such as human T-cell lymphotropic virus 1, which enhance the Th1 arm of the immune system and lessen the Th2 arm, increase the disease state. Another consequence of autoinfection is the autoinfective larvae can carry gut bacteria back into the body. About 50% of people with hyperinfection present with bacterial disease due to enteric bacteria. Also, a unique effect of autoinfective larvae is larva currens due to the rapid migration of the larvae through the skin. Larva currens appears as a red line that moves rapidly (>5 centimetres (2.0 in)/day), and then quickly disappears. It is pathogonomic for autoinfective larvae and can be used as a diagnostic criterion for strongyloidiasis due to S. stercoralis.
Read more about this topic: Strongyloides Stercoralis
Famous quotes containing the word disease:
“[Love] is the type of disease that spares neither the intelligent nor the idiotic.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“His poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunned poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)