The Radiological Manifestations in Bilharziasis

Bilharziasis is so widely spread in Egypt that almost 90 per cent. of the population had contracted the disease sometime, either remote or recent. There is no immunity, and the patient can get repeatedly infected. The mode of infection is generally through the abraded skin. No organ in the body is known to be spared from the infection, and bilharzia ova are reported to be found in the heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and gall bladder. In the gall bladder they were not reported to be the cause of cholelithiasis. The systems which sustain the maximum of the disease are the genito-urinary and the intestinal tracts. In the infection of the genito-urinary and intestinal systems the clinical diagnosis of the disease is made easy by the passage of blood in the urine and fæces, where the bilharzia ova can be easily detected microscopically. What interests the radiologist is the consequence of changes arising as a result of the deposition of the bilharzia ova in the submucosa and the subsequent ulceration and the formation of calcareous deposits, which can be revealed radiologically. The X-ray findings in these cases furnish the surgeon with the detail and extent of the lesion. At Kasr-el-Aini Hospital the radiological examination of the urinary tract comprises almost 50 per cent. of the bulk of the routine work, and about thirty patients are examined daily for the manifestations of bilharziasis or for the presence of stones.