Catalog

Pneumonia in ascariasis

No MMS code

Link to WHO Definition

Pneumonia in ascariasis – http://id.who.int/icd/entity/1706134317

Most people with Ascaris infections are asymptomatic. A small proportion of infected people develop pulmonary symptoms during the second week after ingestion of eggs, when larvae invade lung tissue and provoke an immune-mediated hypersensitivity response. Symptoms include a unproductive cough, chest discomfort, fever, and eosinophilia that disappears often by the time the worms reach maturity. In severe cases, patients develop dyspnoea and an eosinophilic pneumonia (Löffler syndrome) with transient patchy infiltrates seen on radiographs.