Parasitology

Njemanze PC, Anozie J, Chukwu C, Skelton A, Ogaraku AN, Ibegbule FC, Obi OC, Akagha O,
Akuwuike C, Chukwu AA, Ultrasonography of the Duodenum and Colon in Patients with Symptomatic
Giardia lamblia Infection. Journal of Clinical Ultrasound (submitted).
Njemanze PC, Anozie J, Chukwu C, et al. Ultrasound imaging characteristics of common protozoal and
helminthic abdominal lesions. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2001;65:205.

Our mission is to apply imaging methods using affordable portable
ultrasound systems for the diagnosis of organ lesions caused by parasites.
We have developed ultrasound techniques for duodenal and colonic
imaging. These methods have been adapted to indirect imaging of parasites
as floaters in a medium of substrates. The detailed echoanatomy and
changes related to the presence of parasitic lesions have been
characterized. Complications related to space occupying lesions are
revealed by ultrasonography. We have accumulated imaging database for
common parasitic infections in the tropics: giardiasis, amebiasis, ascariais,
ancylostomiasis and echinococcus. We examine space-occupying lesions
caused by the presence of these parasites and study the changes in
hemodynamics using color flow imaging.
We also examine changes related to tissue characterization that are
attributable to the post-inflammatory changes. Where possible and ethical
issues allow we correlate pathological changes with echomorphology.
We are developing Doppler based techniques for detection of malaria
parasites in blood as a noninvasive monitoring tool in our pediatric patients..