Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care (Jan 2021)

Pediatric hypereosinophilia and toxoplasma: Peregrination beyond facileness

  • Aaqib Z Banday,
  • Dharmagat Bhattarai,
  • Naveen Bhagat,
  • Sreejesh Sreedharanunni,
  • Sumeeta Khurana,
  • Deepti Suri

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_257_21
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 9
pp. 3511 – 3514

Abstract

Read online

Evaluation of pediatric hypereosinophilia (HE) is challenging, especially in the tropical developing countries, as appropriate diagnostic facilities may be lacking, parasitic/helminthic infections are common, and existing data on the etiology of severe eosinophilia are sparse. Second, data on long-term follow-up of these children including the temporal course of eosinophilia are also scarce. Besides, questions regarding the coexistence of multiple etiologies and their association with the severity of HE are largely unexplored. These challenges and questions often lead to diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas. We highlight these difficulties utilizing a real-life clinical description. We emphasize the need for long-term follow-up of such children as HE may be the combinatorial effect of multiple etiologies, rather than a single cause. We also describe an unusual association of severe eosinophilia in a child with toxoplasmosis that was treated successfully with 8-week combination therapy with azithromycin and cotrimoxazole (sulfadiazine and pyrimethamine were not available).

Keywords