First cases of ocular dirofilariasis caused by drofilaria repens in Belgium

Purpose To report two different clinical ocular presentations of dirofilariasis caused by Dirofilaria repens and to illustrate the symptoms resulting from this rare condition. Methods A case series of 2 patients. Results The first patient was a 26 years old Romanian man complaining of 1 month‐durati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta ophthalmologica (Oxford, England) England), 2016-10, Vol.94 (S256), p.n/a
Main Authors: Smets, M., De Potter, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia
Biopsy
Corticoids
Corticosteroids
Cysts
Encapsulation
Eye
Eyelid
Inflammation
Magnetic resonance imaging
Nodules
Ophthalmology
Rectus muscle
Scleritis
Ultrasound
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Summary:Purpose To report two different clinical ocular presentations of dirofilariasis caused by Dirofilaria repens and to illustrate the symptoms resulting from this rare condition. Methods A case series of 2 patients. Results The first patient was a 26 years old Romanian man complaining of 1 month‐duration painless swelling and redness of the right eye. Slit lamp examination revealed a scleral nodule located nasally with conjonctival hyperhemia. This condition was diagnosed as nodular scleritis and was initially treated with systemic nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory medication and later, with systemic corticosteroids. Few weeks later, the patient came back to our clinic with the complaint of ‘something coming out of the eye’. The examination of the right eye revealed a partial extrusion of a whitish living worm. Excisionnal biopsy was performed under general anesthesia with complete removal of the parasitic cyst wich was adherent to the medial rectus muscle. The second case was a 61 years old man complaining about a slowly growing and slightly painful nodule located at the internal portion of the left superior eyelid that as been diagnosed as an inflammatory versus infectious anterior orbital cyst. A B‐scan ultrasonography of the lesion documented an encapsulated cyst containing a living worm. The MRI confirmed the cystic component of this preseptal orbital and well‐defined lesion with heterogenous signal. Through transcutaneous approach, excisionnal biopsy of the cyst was performed. The opened cyst showed a living parasite. Conclusions Ocular Dirofilariasis is a rare condition that can easily be confused with tumoral and/or inflammatory lesion.
ISSN:1755-375X
1755-3768
DOI:10.1111/j.1755-3768.2016.0572