Jornal de doenças infecciosas e terapia

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Capsule Endoscopy Demonstrating Blood Sucking Hookworms as A Cause of Obscure Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Varun Gupta, Praveen Sharma, Ashish Kumar, Vikas Singla, Naresh Bansal, Ravi Daswani and Anil Arora

Hookworm infestation will usually present with iron deficiency anemia. In this report we present a case of obscure overt gastrointestinal bleeding occuring from last two years in a young individual, requiring 50 units of blood transfusion. He was diagnosed with hookworm infection on a capsule endoscopy, which demonstrated dancing worms buried in the mucosa of small bowel and were actively sucking blood. He was treated with a short course of mebendazole and recovered completely. Capsule endoscopy can be useful in diagnosing hookworm infection if other modalities fail.