Acute Urinary Retention as Presenting Symptom of Ascaris lumbricoides Infection in Children
1 Department of Pediatrics B, Assaf Harofeh Hospital, Zerifim, Israel
2 Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv
In endemic areas, Ascaris lumbricoides is one of the most common causes of helminthic infections of the intestinal tract. Acute intestinal, pancreatic, or biliary tract obstruction due to the physical presence of the adult parasites has been reported previously.1 Extraintestinal manifestations such as acute respiratory diseases, due to the migration of the larvae to the lung, or intrahepatic or pericholangitis abscesses, due to the deposition of ova in the liver, have also been described.1,2
Urinary retention as a manifestation of intestinal ascariasis has not, to the best of our knowledge, been previously reported. We describe two children with urinary retention and intestinal ascariasis. Clinical and nadiologic evaluation excluded any other cause for urinary retention.




