Surgical Removal of Liver Flukes from the Common Bile Duct

Abstract

INFESTATION of the human biliary passages with<i>Fasciola hepatica</i>is an uncommon occurrence, especially in the United States, despite the rather wide distribution of this fluke in the animal population. Surgical removal of the adult parasites from the bile ducts is a distinct rarity and seems not to have occurred in this country. But there is a large and growing series of reports of<b>F. hepatica</b>infestation in Central and South America and in Cuba, where a third of reported cases are said to occur. Increasing international travel and the recent influx of Cuban refugees into our country, especially into Florida, would seem to make appropriate the present report of the surgical extraction of flukes from the common bile duct. <i>F. hepatica</i>, it will be recalled, dwells normally in its adult form in the bile passages of sheep and other herbivores, and contaminates their feces with its eggs. These