A search for liver damage in anti-amebic treatment with diodoquin, vioform and carbarsone.

Abstract

In recent years the internist has come to recognize that a clinical entity in the liver exists resulting from Endamoeba histolytica of the colon. The diagnosis of a low grade hepatitis is to be suspected in the presence of E. histolytica in the stools when the liver is enlarged and tender to percussion with low grade fever, a mild leukocytosis, and pain in the region of the liver. There may be only hepatic enlargement and tenderness without systemic response. As Sodeman (1950) pointed out, it is extremely desirable to treat these individuals who have hepatomegaly with colonic amebiasis before the development of an acute amebic hepatitis or hepatic abscess. Dennis (1950) reported 53 per cent of a group of 94 typical cases of subacute amebiasis of the colon with palpable livers.Drugs used in the treatment of amebiasis must of necessity be more toxic to the amebae than to the host.