جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "leech" در نشریات گروه "پزشکی"

Poor rural residents who drink leech-contaminated water are more likely to get human leeches. Atrophic endometrium, carcinoma, and other atypical postmenopausal vaginal bleeding causes must be diagnosed and treated immediately. Postmenopausal women may die from this. This paper describes the leech-induced atypical vaginal bleeding of a 72-year-old postmenopausal woman with six days of bleeding and weakness. Her medical history includes a year of tinnitus, three months of dizziness, and true vertigo. Anemia, weakness, and a low hemoglobin level (7.1 mg/dL) resulted from postmenopausal vaginal bleeding. She was transfused with one unit of whole blood and one liter of crystalloid, and she was admitted to a public referral hospital's gynecology ward. The vaginal leech was surgically removed. The patient was discharged five days after the leech was removed. Vaginal bleeding due to leech infestation is a very uncommon but important gynecological problem.

Leeches are rare cause of foreign body in airways. A 23-year-old male, experiencing epistaxis and difficulty in swallowing is presented. During nasopharyngoscopy, a moving leech was observed on the nasopharynx posterior wall in midline location, and removal of the leech was decided under general anaesthesia. The flexible nasopharyngoscopy was inserted, but removal was unsuccessful due to the leech’s movements. Leeches are blood-sucking parasites, so neuromuscular blocking agent was given to prevent the movement. After administration, motion of the leech was lost and easily removed undamaged. In patients presenting with unexplained epistaxis, hemoptysis, dyspnea, and foreign body sensation in the airway, leech infestation should be included as the differential diagnosis and history of contact with stream water should be questioned. We concluded that use of low dose neuromuscular blocking agents facilitates the gentle removal, and could be necessary for successful management of removal of leech under general anaesthesia.

Hemoptysis is defined as blood expectoration from below the vocal cords.  Foreign bodies inhaled or consumed can be the causes of hemoptysis. Among alive foreign objects, leech infestation, happens via drinking infested bodies of water. Leech infestation in airway might be the cause of serious complications naming dysphonia, stridor, hemoptysis, choking, respiratory distress; foreign body sensation. Although intratracheal leech infestation have been rarely reported, in the current case a 79-year farmer presented recurrent non massive hemoptysis. Via fibroptic bronchoscopy a live leech was found in the trachea of the patient and with the use of Lidocaine the leech was removed. In order to avoid such incidences, governments play an important role in building and repairing infrastructures regarding sanitary water and meanwhile educating and informing their population about sanitary water consumption.

Leeches have been used to complement medical therapies for many years, however there is little data on the microorganisms they may harbor as part of their flora. The study aims were to (1) identify the presence of bacteria and (2) the presence of Hepatitis B and C viruses (HBV and HCV) in medicinal leeches using traditional bacteriological assays, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and quantitative PCR (qPCR). Samples obtained from the body surface, intestine, and jaws from 10 Hirudo verbana leeches were aseptically cultured using traditional microbiological assays. Bacterial isolates were identified using the MALDI-TOF technique and the presence of HBV and HCV was analyzed using qPCR. The primary bacterium isolated from the sampled leeches were Aeromonas veronii (A. veronii) which was isolated from the jaws, gut and body surface of all leeches. Other bacteria isolated at a lower frequency from various parts were Chryseobacterium gleum, Ochrobactrum anthropi, Moraxella osloensis, Microbacterium oxydans, Kytococcus sedentarius, Rhizobium radiobacter, Staphylococcus hominis, Citrobacter and Bacillus. No anaerobic bacteria or hepatitis viruses were detected. Interestingly, some of the bacterial species identified in this study have been implicated in hospital acquired infections and are of particular risk to immunocompromised patients. The recovery of potential human pathogens from within medicinal leeches is a public health concern and consequently their use should be restricted and avoided in susceptible individuals or a prophylactic treatment should be applied.

Hemorrhoid disease has been a common medical problem since ancient times. About 5%-10% of patients do not respond to conservative treatment, and surgical procedures have a 20%-25% complication rate including pain, stenosis, infection, incontinence, and the like. Thus, most patients and physicians seek alternative and complementary medicines. Persian medicine (PM) is one of the oldest traditional medicines that present different treatment methods for managing hemorrhoid complications. Accordingly, the present study reviewed these methods and their applications.

This historical review surveyed the principle of management and different medicinal and non-medicinal treatments for each complication of hemorrhoid based on the main textbooks of disease-treatment and famous pharmacopoeias of PM from 10th to 18th century AD. Recent findings about their pharmaceutical properties and mechanisms of action were searched in Google Scholar, Science Direct, and PubMed databases.

In PM, it is believed that hemorrhoid disease is because of melancholic or sanguineous distemperament. Cleansing the body and then strengthening the gastrointestinal and the liver for more effective treatment and prevention of relapse are the first therapeutic approaches in this regard. They use herbal and non-herbal medicines with anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and phlebotonic properties. In addition, different methods of bloodletting are used for body cleansing, reducing pain, and treating bleeding or thrombotic hemorrhoids.

In general, the proposed herbal and non-herbal medicines could be formulated for generating different pharmaceutical products. Finally, non-pharmaceutical methods could be used for postponing the need for surgical interventions

The principle of the use of leeches is associated with traditional medicine of many countries and its application has different philosophies for use in different areas of the body. Leeches, with all the benefits, can have dangers.

A review of complications of leech therapy was done based on English articles indexed in the databases up to July 1, 2018. A strategic search has done independently by members of the research team and then all of the articles were +categorized by subject.

Related articles were mostly case-reports. Complications were divided into five categories including infection, allergy, prolonged bleeding, migration, and others. Infection is the most-reported complication related to leech therapy and Aeromonas spp. has the most participation in infections.

Leech therapy can be a therapeutic complementary method if the possible complications are managed properly.

Foreign bodies in upper airway may have various presentations and be life threatening. Leeches can attach to upper airway and cause serious problems. Herein we report a 55-year-old man with hemoptysis due to attachment of leech and explain our technique for its removal.

 Leech infestation most frequently occurs in upper body cavities of children including pharynx, nose and esophagus and, more rarely, the vagina and vulva. Here we describe a 6-yr-old girl with vulvar bleeding caused by leech infestation that referred to the Emergency unit of the Booali Sina Hospital in Sari, Iran in Sep 2015. She had a history of swimming in a pond prior to the occurrence. The leech infestation particularly vulvar involvement among young girls is extremely rare and yet neglected event in the world.

Acute venous congestion leads to blood stasis in the tissue and impaired blood perfusion. Using medicinal leech is an old method for reducing tissue congestion. There are numerous factors in leech saliva and hirudin that have important roles in the leeching beneficial effect. In this study, an animal study was performed to compare leech therapy with heparin therapy in the treatment of acute venous congestion. Thirty male rats were divided into three groups. In the first group, an acute venous congestion was induced at the thigh. Decongestion was performed through the touch of hirudo medicinalis leech. In the second group, heparin sodium was injected, after tourniquet removal. Eventually, no treatment or procedure was performed in the third group after opening of tourniquet. Histopathological and biochemical analysis were performed in these rat. Edema size in heparin therapy and control groups was significantly greater than leech therapy group. Creatine phosphokinase blood level in leech therapy group was significantly lower than the control group, but this difference was unobserved between heparin therapy and control. In contrast, the level of lactate dehydrogenase and aldolase greatly increased in the control group, which received no intervention. Also in histopathological assessment, the level of tissue damage in both heparin and leech therapy groups showed a significant decrease as compared to the control group. Leech therapy can probably be more effective in the reducing of cellular damage caused by acute tissue congestion as compare to heparin therapy.

Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a painful skin lesion that results from excessive inflammatory response to a host of traumatic, inflammatory, or neoplastic processes in susceptible individuals. A clear pathogenetic mechanism as well as an exhaustive list of potential triggers for PG is yet to be fully characterized.This case documents the occurrence of pyoderma gangrenosum following leech-therapy in a patient who is a known case of ulcerative colitis and it deserves attention because leeches have been part of medical armamentarium since ancient times and have re-emerged in the last century relying on their ancient charm and modern research revealing potential benefits of several bioactive substances in their saliva.

Foreign bodies in the upper airway are one of the most challenging otolaryngology emergencies and have various presentations depending on their physical properties and location. Leeches are blood-sucking hermaphroditic worms that vary in color, length, and shape. They usually reside in fresh-water streams and lakes. When rural untreated water is drunk, leeches may localize in the nose, pharynx, and esophagus, or rarely in the larynx. CaseReport: This case is a man who was referred to our otolaryngology clinic with a complaint of hemoptysis and mild respiratory distress. The patient’s symptoms were all relieved post operatively and he was discharged on the second day following the procedure. Leeches should be suspected as an airway foreign body in patients with a recent history of drinking stream water.

Hirudo medicinalis sucks blood directly through the external mammalian skin. We recently observed a healthy 64-year-old Iranian man, who presented with numerous asymptomatic multilobular oval-to-round well-defined 0.5 to 1.5 cm cystic lesions with central umbilication (central black eschar) over the upper portion of his chest. We made the diagnosis of epidermoid cyst, giant comedone and leech bite on the basis of the constellation of clinical features. The patient was treated with oral ciprofloxacin at a dose of 2 g daily, and 2% topical erythromycin solution. Despite improvement, the evidence of cystic lesions persisted. There was no history of similar lesions in any other family member. There was no history of trauma. The patient was not using any topical or systemic medication. Two weeks before his visit, he had a history of leech therapy under the supervision of a general practitioner. His medical history was significant for leech therapy of the lesions, five days previously. He was followed up for another two weeks and after disappearance of the inflammation, with the patient under local anesthesia, the well-circumscribed mass was completely evacuated with a sharp curette and comedone extractor. The patient was subsequently lost to follow-up. Conclusion Considering the efficacy of leeches, it would be favorable to breed a germ-free leech. In Iran, the use of the leeches in surgery, in recent years, has been infrequent. It appears that the positive effects of this ancient remedy may now be explained through scientific methods, promising potentially even more uses of this admirable creature in medicine.

Hemoptysis in the patients suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) may be resulted by active TB or the complications of such disease which appears as bronchiectasis, fungal lesions deployed in tuberculosis cavities or Rasmussen aneurysm, Bronchiolitis or relapse and sometimes, it may be considered as caused by reasons irrelevant to TB. In this report, the patient is a 69-year-old man as complained of hemoptysis with a treated TB experience that was found as normal in the preliminary review of X-ray and CT. During bronchoscopy, a live leech (bloodsucker) was found in hypopharynx area that was swallowed after repeated attempts to remove it through the gastrointestinal tract and its suction signs were appeared as a mucosal mass in the hypopharynx area. The patient had no symptoms during his stay in the hospital.