Acute intestinal anisakiasis: CT findings

Small bowel anisakiasis is a relatively uncommon disease that results from consumption of raw or insufficiently pickled, salted, smoked, or cooked wild marine fish infected with Anisakis larvae. We report a case of intestinal anisakiasis in a 63-year-old woman presenting with acute onset of abdominal complaints one day after ingestion of raw wild-caught herring from the Northsea. Computed tomography (CT) scanning demonstrated thickening of the distal small bowel wall, mucosa with hyperenhancement, mural stratification, fluid accumulation within dilated small-bowel loops and hyperemia of mesenteric vessels. In patients with a recent history of eating raw marine fish presenting with acute onset of abdominal complaints and CT features of acute small bowel inflammation the possibility of anisakiasis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute abdominal syndromes. (Acta gastroenterol belg, 2012, 75, 364-365).