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Ascariasis is a disease caused by the parasitic roundworm Ascaris lumbricoides. Infections have no symptoms in more than 85% of cases, especially if the number of worms is small. Symptoms increase with the number of worms present and may include shortness of breath and fever at the beginning of the disease. These may be followed by symptoms of abdominal swelling, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Children are most commonly affected, and in this age group the infection may also cause poor weight gain, malnutrition, and learning problems.
Infection occurs by ingesting food or drink contaminated with Ascaris eggs from feces. The eggs hatch in the , the larvae burrow through the gut wall, and migrate to the lungs via the blood. There they break into the alveoli and pass up the trachea, where they are coughed up and may be swallowed. The larvae then pass through the stomach a second time into the intestine, where they become adult worms. It is a type of soil-transmitted helminthiasis and part of a group of diseases called helminthiases.
Prevention is by improved sanitation, which includes improving access to toilets and proper disposal of feces. Handwashing with soap appears protective. In areas where more than 20% of the population is affected, treating everyone at regular intervals is recommended. Reoccurring infections are common. There is no vaccine. Treatments recommended by the World Health Organization are the medications albendazole, mebendazole, levamisole, or pyrantel pamoate. Other effective agents include tribendimidine and nitazoxanide.
About 0.8 to 1.2 billion people globally have ascariasis, with the most heavily affected populations being in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia. This makes ascariasis the most common form of soil-transmitted helminthiasis.
The worms lack teeth. However, they can rarely cause bowel perforations by inducing volvulus and closed-loop obstruction.
Transmission comes through municipal recycled wastewater into crop fields. This is quite common in emerging industrial economies and poses serious risks for local crop sales and exports of contaminated vegetables. A 1986 outbreak of ascariasis in Italy was traced to irresponsible wastewater recycling used to grow Balkan vegetable exports.
The number of ovum (eggs) in sewage or in crops that were irrigated with raw or partially treated sewage, is a measure of the degree of ascariasis incidence. For example:
Eggs can survive potentially for 15 years and a single worm may produce 200,000 eggs a day. They maintain their position by swimming against the intestinal flow.
In areas where more than 20% of the population is affected treating everyone is recommended. This has a cost of about 2 to 3 cents per person per treatment. This is known as mass drug administration and is often carried out among school-age children. For this purpose, broad-spectrum such as mebendazole and albendazole are the drugs of choice recommended by WHO.
Piperazine is a flaccid paralyzing agent that blocks the response of Ascaris muscle to acetylcholine, which immobilizes the worm. It prevents migration when treatment is accomplished with weak drugs such as thiabendazole. If used by itself, it causes the worm to be passed out in the feces and may be used when worms have caused blockage of the intestine or the biliary duct.
Corticosteroids can treat some of the symptoms, such as inflammation.
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In pigs, the infection is caused by Ascaris suum. It is characterized by poor weight gain, leading to financial losses for the farmer.
In horses and other equines, the equine roundworm is Parascaris equorum.
(2025). 9780123815149 ISBN 9780123815149 As of 2010 it caused about 2,700 deaths a year, down from 3,400 in 1990. Another type of Ascaris infects pigs. Ascariasis is classified as a neglected tropical disease.
Signs and symptoms
In populations where Helminthiasis are widespread, it is common to find that most people are infected by a small number of worms, while a small number of people are heavily infected. This is characteristic of many types of worm infections. Those people who are infected with only a small number of worms usually have no symptoms.
Migrating larvae
As larval stages travel through the body, they may cause visceral damage, peritonitis and inflammation, enlargement of the liver or spleen, and an pneumonitis. Pulmonary manifestations take place during larval migration and may present as Loeffler's syndrome, a transient respiratory illness associated with blood eosinophilia and pulmonary infiltrates with radiographic shadowing.Torok E. Oxford Handbook Infect Dis and Microbiol, 2009
Intestinal blockage
The worms can occasionally cause intestinal blockage when large numbers get tangled into a bolus or they may migrate from the small intestine, which may require surgery. More than 796 A. lumbricoides worms weighing up to were recovered at autopsy from a two-year-old South African girl. The worms had caused torsion and gangrene of the ileum, which was interpreted as the cause of death.
Bowel obstruction
Bowel obstruction may occur in up to 0.2 per 1000 per year. A worm may block the ampulla of Vater, or go into the main pancreatic duct, resulting in acute pancreatitis with raised serum levels of amylase and lipase. Occasionally, a worm can travel through the biliary tree and even into the gallbladder, causing acute cholangitis or acute cholecystitis.
Allergies
Ascariasis may result in allergy to shrimp and due to the shared antigen, tropomyosin; this has not been confirmed in the laboratory.
Malnutrition
The worms in the intestine may cause malabsorption and anorexia, which contribute to malnutrition. The malabsorption may be due to a loss of brush border enzymes, erosion and flattening of the villi, and inflammation of the lamina propria.
Others
Ascaris have an aversion to some general anesthetics and may exit the body, sometimes through the mouth, when an infected individual is put under general anesthesia.
Cause
Transmission
The source of infection is from objects contaminated with fecal matter containing eggs. Ingestion of infective eggs from soil contaminated with human feces or contaminated vegetables and water is the primary route of infection. Infectious eggs may occur on objects such as hands, money, and furniture. Transmission from human to human by direct contact is impossible.
(1986). 9781851660353, Elsevier Science Pub Co. ISBN 9781851660353
Lifecycle
The first appearance of eggs in stools is 60–70 days. In larval ascariasis, symptoms occur 4–16 days after infection. The final symptoms are gastrointestinal discomfort, colic and vomiting, fever, and observation of live worms in stools. Some patients may have pulmonary symptoms or neurological disorders during the migration of the larvae. There are generally few or no symptoms. A bolus of worms may obstruct the intestine; migrating larvae may cause pneumonitis and eosinophilia. Adult worms have a lifespan of 1–2 years which means that individuals may be infected all their lives as worms die and new worms are acquired.
Mechanism
Ascaris takes most of its nutrients from the partially digested host food in the intestine. There is some evidence that it can secrete , presumably to protect itself from digestion by the hosts' enzymes. Children are often more severely affected.
Diagnosis
Most diagnosis are made by identifying the appearance of the worm or eggs in feces. Due to the large quantity of eggs laid, diagnosis can generally be made using only one or two .
The diagnosis is usually incidental when the host passes a worm in the stool or vomit. The eggs can be seen in a smear of fresh feces examined on a glass slide under a microscope and there are various techniques to concentrate them first or increase their visibility, such as the ether sedimentation method or the Kato technique. The eggs have a characteristic shape: they are oval with a thick, mamillated shell (covered with rounded mounds or lumps), measuring 35–50 micrometer in diameter and 40–70 in length. During pulmonary disease, larvae may be found in fluids aspirated from the lungs. White blood cell counts may demonstrate peripheral eosinophilia; this is common in many parasitic infections and is not specific to ascariasis. On X-ray, 15–35 cm long filling defects, sometimes with a whirled appearance (bolus of worms).
Prevention
Prevention is by improved access to sanitation which includes the use of properly functioning and clean toilets by all community members as one important aspect. Handwashing with soap may be protective; however, there is no evidence it affects the severity of the disease. Eliminating the use of untreated human faeces as fertilizer is also important.
WHO (2025). 9789241547109, WHO Press, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. . ISBN 9789241547109
Treatment
Medications
Medications that are used to kill roundworms are called . Those recommended by the World Health Organization for ascariasis are: albendazole, mebendazole, levamisole and pyrantel pamoate. Single-dose of albendazole, mebendazole, and ivermectin are effective against ascariasis. They are effective at removing parasites and eggs from the intestines. Other effective agents include tribendimidine and nitazoxanide. Pyrantel pamoate may induce intestinal obstruction in a heavy worm load. Albendazole is contraindicated during pregnancy and children under two years of age. Thiabendazole may cause migration of the worm into the esophagus, so it is usually combined with piperazine.
Other medications
Surgery
In some cases with severe infestation, the worms may cause bowel obstruction, requiring emergency surgery. The bowel obstruction may be due to the number of worms in the bowel or volvulus. During the surgery the worms may be manually removed.
Prognosis
It is rare for infections to be life-threatening.
Epidemiology
for ascariasis per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004
Regions
Ascariasis is common in tropical regions as well as subtropical and regions that lack proper sanitation. It is rare to find traces of the infection in developed or urban regions.
Infection estimates
Roughly 0.8–1.3 billion individuals are infected with this intestinal worm, primarily in Africa and Asia. About 120 to 220 million of these cases are symptomatic.
Deaths
As of 2010, ascariasis caused about 2,700 directly attributable deaths, down from 3,400 in 1990. The indirectly attributable deaths due to the malnutrition link may be much higher.
Research
Mouse and pig animal models are used to study Ascaris infection.
Other animals
Ascariasis is more common in young animals than mature ones, with signs including unthriftiness, potbelly, rough hair coat, and slow growth.
Society and culture
Kings of England Richard III and Henry VIII both had ascariasis.
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