Gnathostomiasis

A disease due to the migration of an immature roundworm called Gnathostoma. Migration just under the skin causes migratory, painful, itchy swellings. Migration to other tissues can result in cough, blood in the urine, eye involvement and, most seriously, meningitis and encephalitis. People become infected by eating undercooked fish or poultry or drinking water containing the worm's larvae. Once mainly in Asia, this worm has emerged as an important parasite in Mexico. Removal and identification of the worm is both diagnostic and therapeutic. Treatment is surgical removal and use of the antiparasitic drug albendazole.

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A migrating edema, or creeping eruption, caused by cutaneous infection by larvae of Gnathostoma spinigerum. SYN: Yangtze edema.

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gna·thos·to·mi·a·sis nə-.thäs-tə-'mī-ə-səs n, pl -a·ses -.sēz infestation with or disease caused by nematode worms of the genus Gnathostoma commonly acquired by eating raw fish

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gnatho·sto·mi·a·sis (nath″o-sto-miґə-sis) infection with the nematode Gnathostoma spinigerum, occurring in animals that eat raw or undercooked fish harboring the larvae. Usually the larvae migrate in subcutaneous tissue and cause cutaneous larva migrans. Occasionally they migrate to deeper tissues to cause abscesses, or to the central nervous system to cause eosinophilic myeloencephalitis.