Unilateral phthiriasis palpebrarum infestation in a child during occlusion therapy for amblyopia: case report

An 8-year-old mentally retarded boy is brought to the hospital because of itching and burning at his right eye for 10 days. He was on full time right eye occlusion therapy for left amblyopia. Slit lamp examination revealed nits and adult lice anchored to the eyelashes in his occluded eye. Eyelashes and all detected lice and nits were mechanically trimmed, and sent for parasitological examination, which confirmed the diagnosis. Upon familial evaluation for additional infestation, the father was also found to have genital phthiriasis pubis and received appropriate treatment. While phthiriasis palpebrarum in children may signify sexual abuse, a detailed investigation by a child psychiatrist was performed and revealed no sign of abuse. Since the infestation was at only on occluded eye, the most possible explanation for the transmission was evaluated as the misusage of the adhesive patch in our case. In conclusion, sexual abuse should be excluded in children with phthiriasis palpebrarum and parents of amblyopic children on occlusion therapy should be warned about the importance of the hygiene of the patching in order to avoid any kind of infection and infestation

new technique to avoid losing the strains of Echinococcus multilocularis during passaging

To examine the survival of Echinococcus multilocularis [E. multilocularis] and the formation of protoscoleces, under refrigerated conditions over a 43-day observation period. We conducted this study in Ege University, School of Medicine, from May-December, 2004. We included 4 healthy females and 2 males, 8-12 week old M. unguiculatus species [approximately 60-70 gr] for the study, as they are known to be susceptible to E. multilocularis. In this experimental study, we aimed to define a technique to keep the strains during these passages. We found preserved viability and virulence of E. multilocularis stored in RPMI 1640 plus 10% fetal calf serum at +40C. We accomplished the infection of the Meriones unguiculatus after in-vivo passaging from that flask, which we kept at +40C, and this proves the viability of protoscoleces and membranous structures perfectly at the 43rd day. We also found that E. multilocularis metacestodes and the formation of protoscoleces keep their viability up to 60 days and virulence up to 43 days under this condition. We recommend storing an extra flask during each passage as a precaution against losing strains