PARASITIC INFECTIONS, AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH CHRONIC URTICARIA

Introduction: Parasites have been proposed to be an underlying cause of chronic spontaneous urticaria, but a clear causal relationship between them has not been established. This study was aimed to nd out the Aims And Objectives: prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections in patients with underlying chronic urticaria and correlate it with associated gastrointestinal symptoms , presence of urticaria, gender , age group and area(rural or urban). The stool samples of Material And Methods: suspected patients were send to parasitology section from dermatology OPD from August 2018-august 2019 and subjected to routine stool investigations. Macroscopic examination was carried out for the presence of adult worms or their body segments and stool samples were processed using saline and iodine mounts and examined microscopically for ova , cysts and eggs of parasites. Total of 3850 Results: patients were referred from dermatology opd with underlying urticaria . Out of them, 68 (17.7%) had parasitic infection . Maximum numbers of patients were in the age group of 0-10yrs 28(41.2%). Total 84 parasites were isolated from 68 positive patients. Parasite most commonly isolated was Giardia lamblia 29(34.5%), followed by Entamaeba histolytica 22(26.2%), Ascaris lumbricoides 20(23.8 %), Hymenolepis nana 6(7.1%), followed by Taenia species 4(4.7%) and Enterobius vermicularis was the least common isolate 2(2.4%) . Mixed infection with a combination of Entamoeba histolytica and Giardia lamblia were most commonly isolated (9 out of 16 mixed infections). Only 60% positive patient had a history of urticaria and 39 % patients have underlying gastrointestinal symptoms. 58.8% were male patients and 59% were from urban area. Intestinal Conclusion: parasites can be attributed as one of the underlying cause of skin problems like chronic urticaria . Therefore routine stool examination should be done in suspected cases.