Groundbreaking outpatient activity in medical entomology in France: An eight-year experience in a french university hospital

Introduction: Arthropods are known to impair human health in various manners, acting as infectious dis-ease vectors, or as simple nuisances. Even though considerable research is being produced in medical entomology, no reports on patient management in clinical entomology units are available in the litera-ture.Patients and Methods: We retrospectively surveyed all the records from patients having consulted in our outpatient clinical entomology unit in Nice University Hospital from 2012 to 2020. For each patient, physical examination findings and treatment data were analyzed.Results: A total of 518 patients were analyzed in this study. Most were diagnosed with arthropod infes-tation (55.8%), the most common being Sarcoptes scabiei (35%), bedbugs (23%), Pyemotes dermatitis (17.6%) and flea infestation (15.9%). Along with symptomatic treatments, targeted environmental mea-sures could be proposed for infested patients. For many of our patients, on the other hand, active infes-tation was ruled out.Conclusion: Given today's lack of expertise in medical entomology, we advocate for the creation of med-ical entomology units in university hospitals, not only allowing fair and proportionate multidisciplinary management of patients in whom arthropod infestation is suspected, but also generating cost savings.