A Case of Recurrent Paragonimiasis

ABSTRACT

Pulmonary paragonimiasis is a food-borne zoonosis, which is acquired from eating the raw or undercooked freshwater crabs or crayfish (crustaceans). It was highly endemic in Korea the late 1960's. However, human paragonimiasis is still sporadically occuring because of pupularization of Korean traditional crab dishes and is one of the lung disease which needs differential diagnosis. Recently, we experienced a case of pulmonary paragonimiasis in a 55 years man with dyspnea, dry cough and abdominal pain. The patient had hypereosinophilia and pulmonary infiltrates with pleural effusion, which did not improve on antibiotics. Diagnosis was confirmed by sputum with Paragonimus westermani ova, which was treated with praziquantel for two days at a daily dosage of 75 mg/kg. The patient was readmitted to the hospital 1 month following first treatment with recurrence of symptoms and he was cured by a second course of praziquantel.