Short Report: Human Ocular Infection with Dirofilaria repens (Railliet and Henry, 1911) in an Area Endemic for Canine Dirofilariasis

reconditum infection was detected in dogs from all the provinces sampled, a significantly higher prevalence of D. repens (30.8%) was found in animals in Trapani Province than in those from other provinces (0.4–4.7%). The uneven distribution of D. repens in provinces in Sicily represented the foundation for the present work. We report a human case of ocular infection with D. repens in Trapani, an area to which canine dirofilariasis is endemic. The relationship between microfilaremic dogs and human cases of dirofilariasis by D. repens is also discussed on the basis of a review of the historical literature. A 55 year-old man came to the Ospedale Riccardo Guzzardi Vittoria (Ragusa, Sicily) with intense pain and redness in the right eye. The patient reported eyelid swelling in the right eye, photophobia, conjunctiva irritation, and a history of painful insect bites on his forehead, five months earlier, at the beginning of summer (June) during a trip to Trapani. Ophthalmologic examination showed a nematode under the bulbar conjunctiva of the right eye of the patient, and surgery for the removal of the nematode was recommended. After topical anesthesia, the palpebral fissure was kept open by using a blefarostat, and the nematode was gently extracted after incision of the conjunctiva membranes ( Figure 1 and Supplemental Video). The patient recovered without complications within two weeks after surgery. After extraction, the nematode was morphologically studied by using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. A small section (approximately 3 mm) of the nematode was used for DNA extraction and subsequent amplification of cox 1 gene fragments as described. 9