Urinary Schistosomiasis, some clinical and radiological features as seen at Kenyatta national Hospital
Abstract
A prospective study of the clinical pattern and
radiological abnormalities of the urinary tract of patients
presenting with schistosoma haematobium infection at
Kenyatta National Hospital were carried out. Later, a
retrospective study of patients with proven schistosoma
haematobium previously treated in this hospital between
1980 to 1984 whose files could be traced in the records
were done to extract similar information.
In the pr-o apec aLve group a total of 31 patients were
seen while in the retrospective group only 10 cases could
be traced. For both the groups, their ages ranged from
6 to 65 years with 75% of them falling within the range of
11 to 25 years. The majority in the prospective group were
coming for the first time and only 3 (6%) patients reported
having been treated before. 23 (51%) patients in both
groups had had symptoms for less than one year.
In the prospective group, most of the patients were
in fairly good general condition and did not have any signs
or symptoms suggestive of complications of the urinary
tract disease. Of the 20 patients in the prospective group
who were radiologically examined, only 2 patients had
radiological abnormalities of the urinary tract. Both had
had the disease for more than two years. In one of the
two cases, there was a left hydroureter with a large urinary
(vi)
bladder calcification. He was a 23 year old male from
South Nyanza District. He had had urinary symptoms
such as haematuria, dysuria and abdominal pain for about
10 years. The second with abnormal intravenous pyelogram
(IVP) was a 21 year old female from Kisumu district. Her
IVP showed radiological features of chronic pyelonephritis
thought to be due to chronic bacterial infection supervening
upon the damage caused by prolonged schistosoma
haematobium infection, since significant bacterzurLa
has been shown in these patients.
In the retrospective group very scanty clinical notes
were a~available. One patient required transfusion but no
hemoglobin level was available. Only 1(10%) patient had
elevated blood urea nitrogen while one patient was hypertensive.
However, no radiological examination was done in
all these patients to asses any abnormalities of the urinary
tract.
Citation
A dissertation submitted in part fulfilment for the Degree of Master of Medicine (Medicine) of the University of Nairobi, Kenya.Publisher
Faculty of Medicine (M.Med.)