Human Urinary Gnathostomiasis: A Case Report from Thailand

Abstract

Acase of urinary gnathostomiasis in a 32-year-old Thai woman, caused by an adult male Gnathostoma spinigerum, is described. The patient who had suffered from intermittent, subcutaneous gnathostomialis for about 10 years, developed pneumonia of the right lower lung followed by swelling on the right hypochondrium, and paresis of both legs accompanied by perianal numbness and retention of urine, and it seems reasonable to assume that the parasite migrated to the lung, hypochondrium, and the cauda equina, respectively. She later passed the worm, which we beleive problably came from the bladder. To the best of our knowledge, no case of human urinary gnathostomiasis has previously been reported in the English literature.