Abstract
Human linguatulosis is a considerable medical problem in endemic
regions. The infection is caused by a cosmopolitanfood-borne
zoonoticparasiteLinguatula serrata (L. serrata) belonging to class
pentastomida.Adult parasitesreside in upper respiratory system, nasal
airways and sinuses of carnivorous animals as their final
hosts.Herbivorous and other ruminants as intermediate hosts reserve
immatureform of parasite in mesenteric lymph nodes, liver, lungs and
spleen. Human get infection with both adult and nymph stages of
parasite.Halzoun syndrome(Marrara syndrome) is the most common form of
human nasopharyngeal linguatulosis which is transmitted through
ingestion of L. serrata nymphs (adult stage) found in intermediate
host’s organs and resulting in nasopharyngeal linguatulosis with signs
of pharyngitis, salivation, dysphagia, and cough.r. This review includes
previous studies on L. serrata conducted in Iran and other countries
from 1940 to 2019. A systematic search is undertaken on five English and
five Persian databases for English or Persian publications describing
human linguatulosiscases in the world .Totally, 30 papers reporting
62human linguatulosiscases from various regions of the world are
included in this review.All included papers were from the English
databases. The age of patients ranged from 8 to 79 years, and the mean
age was 25.8 years. Of all the patients, 41(66.1%) were female and
21(33.9%)were male. The highest number of cases (n = 25) was reported
from Sudan.The nasopharynxwas the most commonly reported anatomical
location of human linguatulosis cases.As a result, we think that
physicians should consider L. serratainfestation in patients attending
to the health foundations with complaintssuch as pharyngitis,
accompanied by pharyngeal pain,coughing, sneezing and vomiting.