Giardiasis

Giardiasis.

The recent near-epidemic incidence of Giardia lamblia infection in visitors to the Soviet Union illustrates the importance of this intestinal flagellate as a cause of diarrhea in travelers worldwide. Clinical states range from the asymptomatic cyst-passing stage, to the chronic or subacute stage mimicking gallbladder or ulcer disease, to the transient or, rarer, persistent acute stage with stea...

Giardiasis

Gastric giardiasis.

AIMS To assess the prevalence of gastric giardiasis in patients undergoing upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, and to define the clinicopathological correlates of gastric Giardia lamblia infection. METHODS Consecutive gastric biopsy specimens (n = 15,023) from 11,085 patients, taken at Feltre City Hospital (north eastern Italy) from January 1986 to December 1991, were histologically and immunoc...

Treatment of giardiasis.

Giardia lamblia is both the most common intestinal parasite in the United States and a frequent cause of diarrheal illness throughout the world. In spite of its recognition as an important human pathogen, there have been relatively few agents used in therapy. This paper discusses each class of drugs used in treatment, along with their mechanism of action, in vitro and clinical efficacy, and sid...

Giardia lamblia and Giardiasis

Introduction Ask the average outdoors person about Giardia lamblia, and they have certainly heard about it. Almost always, however, they are considerably misinformed about both the organism’s significance in wilderness water and the seriousness of the disease, giardiasis, if contracted. The amount of information easily found on the subject is voluminous. Unfortunately, almost all of it is flawe...