Unusual case of Recurrent Epistaxis due to NASAL Leech Infestation- A report
Researchers from the B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences Dharan Nepal have recently reported an interesting study wherein they found out that recurrent unilateral nasal bleeding occurred due to a leech infestation.
The study is published in the Journal of Nepal Medical Association.
Common causes for unilateral nasal bleeding in adults are benign or malignant tumors and deviated nasal septum. The incidence of an episode of nasal bleeding during a life time has been described as approximately 60%. Epistaxis results from the interaction of factors that damage the nasal mucosal lining, affect the vessel walls, or alter the coagulability of the blood, and which may be categorized into environmental, local, systemic and medication related.
Unilateral epistaxis is commonly due to foreign bodies or benign or malignant neoplasms. Parasitic infestation is a rare cause, the most important being myiasis. Leech infestation has not been mentioned as a cause of epistaxis in the literature. Hence, the authors evaluated a series of two case reports of a sixty-three-year old male and a thirty–eight-year man, both reported with a history of recurrent, painless, left-side nasal bleeding for 5 months and 1 month respectively.
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