Loa loa filariasis surgery

Surgical excision of migrating adult worms is an effective treatment for symptoms localized to the migrating worm and provides an opportunity for diagnosis. Systemic therapy would be required to cure the infection unless the patient is infected with only a single adult worm.

Management of Loa loa infection in some instances can involve surgery, though the timeframe during which surgical removal of the worm must be carried out is very short. A detailed surgical strategy to remove an adult worm is as follows (from a real case in New York City). The 2007 procedure to remove an adult worm from a male Gabonian immigrant employed proparacaine and povidone-iodine drops, a wire eyelid speculum, and 0.5ml 2% lidocaine with epinephrine 1:100,000, injected superiorly. A 2-mm incision was made and the immobile worm was removed with forceps. Gatifloxacin drops and an eye-patch over ointment were utilized post surgery and there were no complications (unfortunately, the patient did not return for DEC therapy to manage the additional worm—and microfilaria—present in his body).^[1]

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