In tropical countries, leech bites are common and reported to cause life-threatening complications. We would like to highlight two cases that represented acute and chronic gynaecological complications of leech bites. First case was a two-year-old girl who presented with persistent vaginal bleeding complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulopathy after a leech was forcefully removed from h...

1. The injection of leech extracts into the skin increases its permeability, as shown both by the spread of fluid and of foreign particles through the dermis. The spread is followed some hours after the injection by more or less edema of the subcutaneous tissue. 2. A preliminary study of the chemical properties of the leech spreading factor indicates a similarity with the spreading factor prepa...

UNLABELLED The purpose of research is to study the influence of plant mitogens and antigens of the water-salt extract from the bodies of Hirudo verbana, H. medicinalis, H. orientalis on the reaction of lymphocyte blast-transformation and the synthesis of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-8, TNF-α) in patients' cell culture supernatants before and after hirudotherapy. RESEARCH METHODS the ...