Hepatic Capillariasis- Drug Targets

Zoonotic infections are increasingly becoming public health menaces and are usually transmitted to humans due to unsuitable environmental conditions. One of them is hepatic capillariasis, caused by the parasite Capillaria hepatica, primarily a disease of rodents, with hepatic manifestations in humans. Although its prevalence is very low, it can cause significant morbidity and mortality, with cases reported from all over the world. The main infective form for humans is the embryonated egg of the parasite, which hatch in the intestine and ultimately colonize the liver. The larvae mature and repro-duce, and eventually form embryonated eggs, which cause chronic focal inflamma-tion and septal hepatic fibrosis. Clinical presentation mainly consists of fever, abdominal pain, hepatomegaly and eo-sinophilia. Spurious infection with unembryonated eggs cause gastrointestinal symp-toms. Diagnostic modalities include liver biopsy, ultrasonography, CT scan, immu-nological tests like ELISA and IIFT. The infection can be treated mainly with a combination of benzimidazoles like thiabendazole, mebendazole and albendazole; with corticosteroids. The study emphasizes the need for hepatic capillariasis to be considered as a differ-ential diagnosis in cases of suspected hepatitis, leptospirosis, abdominal lymphade-nopathy or other hepatic or parasitic infections prevalent in the region concerned; and meticulously assess the cases to facilitate early diagnosis and prompt treatment, thus reducing the distress faced by patients.