Gastrointestinal anisakiasis: 7 cases during 3 months.

Human anisakiasis or anisakidosis is an unusual parasitation. During the au tumn of 1996 seven patients came to our Hospital for such a condition. Five of these patients had the parasites in the gastroduodenal area (1 in t he gastric body, 3 in the antrum and 1 in the duodenal bulb, this one with two parasites). Four out of the five patients consulted us for intense epig astric pain; only one developed a cutaneous rash. The fifth patient was dia gnosed unexpectedly during an endoscopy appointment. Eosinophilia was detec ted in none. All the parasites were extracted endoscopically and identified as belonging to the Anisakis genera. Excepting for the patient with no com plaint, the other four showed adhered larvas to mucosa. The two other patients were operated because of acute abdominal pain. At la parotomy an ileitis was seen and then resected. Under microscopic examinati on both ileon were found to be edematous and infiltrated by eosinophils. An isakis larvae were observed in the submucosa of one of the removed intestin es. The other patient was diagnosed after an inmunologic study consisting o f radioinmunoassay and Western Blot. Five of the seven patients (71%) adquired the parasites after consumption o f anchovies with vinegar.