Enterobius vermicularis in appendectomy specimens; Clinicopathological assessment: Cross sectional study

Abdulkarim Hasan; Khalid Nafie; Samar El-Sayed; Mohamed Nasr; Ayman Abdulmohaymen; Mohamed Baheeg; Osama Abbadi

doi:10.1016/j.amsu.2020.10.057

Enterobius vermicularis in appendectomy specimens; Clinicopathological assessment: Cross sectional study

Ann Med Surg (Lond). 2020 Oct 28:60:168-172. doi: 10.1016/j.amsu.2020.10.057. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Authors

Abdulkarim Hasan^{1

2}, Khalid Nafie², Samar El-Sayed³, Mohamed Nasr⁴, Ayman Abdulmohaymen⁵, Mohamed Baheeg⁶, Osama Abbadi⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
² Laboratory & Blood Bank Department, Prince Mishari Bin Saud Hospital, Baljurashi, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine for Girls, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁴ Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁵ Department of Surgical Oncology Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁷ Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Omdurman Islamic University, Sudan.

Abstract

Background: This study identifies the incidence of appendiceal Enterobius vermicularis (E.v) infestation in all the patients undergoing appendectomy and evaluates the relationship between E. v infestation of the appendix and the acute appendicitis.

Method: ology: All the routinely examined appendectomy specimens received in the pathology laboratory of a referral hospital over a three year period of time were reviewed for the existence of E. v. These cases were evaluated for clinico-laboratory characterization.

Results: Out of 1150 appendectomies for clinical acute appendicitis picture, 31 (2.7%) cases revealed E. v infestation. The age ranged from 6 to 42 years old but more than 80% of the E. v infected cases were children. Twenty four cases (77.4%) did not show any other appendiceal pathology, six cases showed lymphoid hyperplasia and only one case showed concomitant histological acute inflammatory process.

Conclusion: E. v infestation is an incidental finding during histopathology examination of appendectomy specimens for patients with clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis, however there is no relation between the existence of E. v and occurrence of acute appendicitis which is the main indication for appendectomy, so further studies are recommended to reach out earlier diagnosis to eliminate the unnecessary surgical intervention. Also surgeons should consider E. v as a differential diagnosis when removing a normal looking appendix to take the necessary precautions for minimizing any chance of contamination and sending all the normal looking appendectomy specimens for histopathology examination.

Keywords: Appendix; Histopathology; Parasitic infestation.