 flat hermaphroditic worms

 Length- few millimeters to many

centimeters
 70 species- colonize human intestine
 Fasciolopsis buski- most common
 other 3 trematodes— Heterophyes
heterophyes, Metagonimus yokogawai,
and Echinostoma
 Gastrodiscoides hominis, Phaneropsolus
bonnei, and Prosthodendrium molenkampi
– rarely cause human intestinal diseases
Intestinal flukes causes:
 Inflammation
 Ulceration
 mucous secretion at the site of attachment.
Severe infections cause
 intestinal obstruction or malabsorption
 leading to hypoalbuminemia
 protein-losing enteropathy
 impaired vitamin B-12 absorption.
 Stage Normal life cycle
1. Egg Expelled with bowel movement onto soil. Washed by rain into Fluke Life-Cycles
ponds. The long and
2. Miracidia Hatches from egg in water. Has cilia, can swim vigorously and complex life-cycle
must find intermediate snail host in one to two hours or may be of the fluke can be
too exhausted to invade.
made easier to
3. Redia Develop inside miracidia as little balls until expelled. Those are understand through
"mother" redia, and each one bears "daughter" redia for up to 8 the use of a
months, all still inside the snail, and living on the fluids in the
mnemonic :
lymphatic spaces. Similarly, daughter redia are continually
developing cercaria. Every - Egg
Mirror - Miracidium
(free-living in
4. Cercaria Have a tail, use it to exit from snail and swim to a plant. If the
snail is feeding on a plant, cercaria can latch onto plant with water)
sucker mouth and start to encyst (form a "cocoon") within Spotted -
minutes. Tail breaks off and swims away to dissolve. Sporocyst (in snail)
Red - Redia (in
5. Metacercaria Two-walled cysts. The outer wall is very sticky. But as you eat snail)
the plant it is stuck to, the least pressure will break it, leaving Certainly -
the cyst in the mouth. The "almost unbreakable" inner cyst wall Cercaria (free-
protects it from chewing, and the keratin-like coat prevents
digestion by stomach juices. However when it reaches the living in
duodenum, contact with intestinal juices dissolves away the water/snail)
cyst-wall and frees it. It then fastens itself to the intestinal Met - Metacercaria
lining and begins to develop into an adult. (in 2nd
intermediate host)
6. Adult Lives in your intestine and can produce 1000 eggs per bowel Approval - Adult
movement and live many years.
Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Platyhelminthes

Class: Trematoda

Family: Fasciolidae

Genus: Fasciolopsis

Species: buski
• a.k.a. giant intestinal fluke , small intestine

•Shape and size: large leaf-shaped worm,

elongated and oval, 2- 7 cm long,
size of an adult worm- 3 inches in length
and 1 inch in width

• other characteristics:
1. fleshy body with ellipsoidal eggs

2. yellow brown in color

3. shell is transparent
4. blunt anterior end, undulating, unbranched
ceca (sac-like cavity with a single
opening)

5. tandem, dendritic testes, branched

ovaries

6. ventral suckers to attach itself to the host

7. acetabulum is larger than the oral sucker

with extensive vitelline follicles.

8. lack of cephalic cone or "shoulders" and

the unbranched ceca unlike fasciolids
• mostly found in the continent of Asia
like Bangladesh, Cambodia, China (in
the central and southern regions),
India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand and
Vietnam

• prevalence of up to 60% in India and

mainland China and has an estimated
10 million human infections.

• Infections occur most often in

school-age children or in
impoverished areas with a lack of
•Animal reservoirs like pigs, rabbits and dogs
and the use of untreated human feces for
fertilizer make it difficult to prevent infection

•Acquired by ingestion of metacercariae on

freshwater vegetation like water bamboo and
water chestnut, water calthrop, water morning
glory lotus and water hyacinth

• Other parts of the world, the giant intestinal

fluke does not occur because the climate does
not support its survival there or because the
necessary intermediate hosts (plant or animal
hosts that do not host the parasite during its
sexually reproductive stage) are absent.
Timing:
Prepatent period
about 3 months
Eggs in water 3 -
7 wks for
miracidium
Cercaria produced
at 30 - 50 days
Metacercariae live
for at least a year
if moist
•Fasciolopsiasis- disease

•light and asymptomatic

• In heavy infections : Abdominal pain, chronic

diarrhea, anemia, ascites, toxemia , allergic
responses, sensitization caused by the absorption
of the worms allergenic metabolites (may cause
death), and intestinal obstruction

•mucosal ulceration, GI hemorrhage, and/or

abscess formation- erosion into the intestinal wall

•Absorption of toxic metabolites may lead to the

development of, potentially fatal, systemic
symptoms.
 A. Mechanical injury, abdominal pain and intestinal
disorder
B. Spoliation of nourishment,
covering the wall of intestine to affect absorption
C. Allergy caused by secretions and excrements
D. Intestinal obstruction by a mass of the worms

A. Microscopic identification of eggs, or

more rarely of the adult flukes, in the
stool or vomitus is the basis of specific
diagnosis Worms may be passed in
feces or vomited.
B. Stool examination:
1.Direct fecal smear2.Water
sedimentation method
C. Fecal sedimentation of find large (67-
181 x 43 -95 micron) eggs with small,
indistinct operculum.
D. Eggs identical to F. hepatica.
 Avoiding the use of night soil as a
fertilizer, and maintenance of proper
sanitation and good hygiene.
Additionally, snail control should be
attempted.

 Deworm definitive hosts - humans and

pigs

 Black Walnut Green Hull is proven

effective against this trematode on his
adult phase, for the larvae wormwood is
known to help and the eggs cloves are
used
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Platyhelminthes
Class: Trematoda
Order: Echinostomida
Family: Echinostomatidae
Genus: Echinostoma
Species: ilonacum
 Reddish gray, 2.5 – 6.5 mm by 1.0 – 1.35
mm Integument covered with plaquelike
scales
 Anterior end provided with a circumoral disk
 surrounded with a crown of 49 – 51 spines
 Oral sucker lies at the center of the disk
 Ventral sucker in the anterior fifth of the body
 Testes deeply lobed and in tandem
 Ovary located in front of the testes
 Uterus between the intestinal ceca bounded
 by the ventral sucker and ovary
 Crescent shaped vitelleria in the lateral
 fields of the posterior 2/3 of the body
 The natural definitive hosts are humans
 The first intermediate snail host are Gyraulus
convexiusculus and Hippeutis umbilicalis
 The second intermediate hosts are the snails
Pila luzonica (“kuhol”)
 Rats may serve as an important reservoir host
 Infection is acquired by ingestion of raw snails
that serves as second intermediate hosts of the
parasite
•Geographic distribution:
●Infection is prevalent in
Northern Luzon, Leyte, Samar
and Mindanao.

●It is also found in

Indonesia, India, China and
Thailand.
 Demonstration of eggs in the
stools
Straw colored, operculated,
ovoid, 83 – 116 by 58 – 69 u
thin-shelled eggs
Immature when passed in
the feces
Morphologically similar to
eggs of Fasciola and
Fasciolopsis