Objective: Eosinophilia is commonly reported to occur in hookworm infection. Hence a detailed study was done to know about the occurrence of severe eosinophilia without anaemia in patients with hookworm infection found while doing upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy.
Methods: A study of 1137 patients who had undergone upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy for a period of four years and eight months from May 2009 to December 2013 was carried out. The first and second part of duodenum were carefully examined to find out the presence of hookworms. In all the patients found to have hookworms in duodenum, investigations were done to know about the presence or absence of eosinophilia and severe eosinophilia and the presence or absence of anaemia. The results were found as given below.
Results: Out of these 1137 patients, 14 patients found to have hookworms in duodenum while doing upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy were taken into consideration for our study. Out of these14 patients with hookworms in duodenum, as many as 10 patients with hookworms in duodenum were found to have eosinophilia [71%]. Severe eosinophilia was found in 4 out of 10patients with eosinophilia (40%).3out of 4 patients with severe eosinophilia with hookworm infection in our study had anaemia, but one patient with severe eosinophilia did not have anaemia.
Conclusion: One patient with severe eosinophilia with hookworm infection did not have anaemia. Hence severe eosinophilia can be present in the early stage of hookworm infection even before the onset of anaemia.
