Review Eosinophilic meningitis due to Angiostrongylus cantonensis in Europe Frederik Federspiel a, *, Sofie Skovmand b , Sigurdur Skarphedinsson c a Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15–17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH, United Kingdom b Department of Microbiology, Odense University Hospital, Søndre Blvd. 29, 5000 Odense C, Denmark c Clinical Centre of Emerging and Vector-borne Infections, Department of Infectious Diseases, Odense University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Søndre Blvd. 29, 5000 Odense C, Denmark A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 18 September 2019 Received in revised form 3 January 2020 Accepted 13 January 2020 Keywords: Eosinophilic meningitis Angiostrongylus cantonensis Europe A B S T R A C T Objectives: To describe and analyse the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of imported human angiostrongyliasis in Europe. Methods: A systematic literature review of cases of human angiostrongyliasis in Europe was performed. Seven databases were searched. The epidemiological and clinical characteristics were extracted from included records and simple summary statistics were performed on extracted data. Results: Twenty-two cases reported between 1988 and 2019 were identified. They were mainly from French Polynesia, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean Islands. The dominant suspected mode of transmission was ingestion of prawns, shrimp, or salad. For patients with data, 90% had a history of headache, often lasting, and half had paresthesia. Eighty-nine percent had eosinophilia, 93% had cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) eosinophilia, and 92% had elevated CSF protein. Central nervous system (CNS) imaging was normal in most cases. Two-thirds received albendazole or mebendazole treatment, although this is not currently recommended. Conclusions: We have increased previous numbers to 22 reported cases in total since 1988. Angiostrongyliasis should generally be suspected in patients with a lasting headache who have returned from Southeast Asia, China, the Caribbean Islands, Australia, or French Polynesia, as well as parts of North America and Tenerife, Spain, although one autochthonous case from mainland Europe has also been reported. A dietary history should focus on prawns, shrimp, and salad, whilst also including slugs and snails and other paratenic hosts where relevant. The clinical diagnosis is supported by the presence of blood eosinophilia, CSF eosinophilia, and elevated CSF protein. A definitive laboratory diagnosis should be sought, and CNS imaging should be used to support, not to rule out the diagnosis. The most up-to-date evidence should always be consulted before initiating treatment. Current recommendations include analgesics, corticosteroids, and periodic removal of CSF for symptom relief, while antihelminthic treatment is debated. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/). Introduction Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a zoonotic pathogenic nematode with rats as the definitive hosts (Wang et al., 2008). Human infection occurs from deliberate or inadvertent ingestion of third- stage larvae in raw or undercooked intermediate hosts, namely snails or slugs, or via contaminated fomites, e.g., uncooked vegetables. In addition, the ingestion of paratenic hosts such as freshwater shrimps, land crabs, frogs, toads, and monitor lizards can also cause infection (Cowie, 2013). Figure 1 shows the lifecycle, human transmission, and symptoms of A. cantonensis. Upon ingestion, the infective larvae invade the intestinal wall causing enteritis and then enter the bloodstream (Wang et al., 2008; Yii, 1976). The most common site of migration is the central nervous system (CNS), causing the main clinical manifestation of angios- trongyliasis, i.e., eosinophilic meningitis, defined as the presence of more than 10 eosinophils/mm 3 in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and/ or at least 10% eosinophils in the total cerebrospinal leukocyte count * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (F. Federspiel), sofi[email protected] (S. Skovmand), [email protected] (S. Skarphedinsson). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.01.012 1201-9712/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). International Journal of Infectious Diseases 93 (2020) 28–39 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Infectious Diseases journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijid
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