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Case Reports
. 2021 Oct 15;21(1):1067.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-021-06742-z.

Neonatal oral myiasis caused by the larvae of Sarcophaga ruficornis (Diptera: Sarcophagidae): a case report

Minyu Zhou #  1 , Ke Cao #  2 , Hui Huang  1 , Xiaojuan Luo  2 , Ying Wang  2 , Weike Ma  2 , Zhiyue Lv  3   4   5
Affiliations
Case Reports

Neonatal oral myiasis caused by the larvae of Sarcophaga ruficornis (Diptera: Sarcophagidae): a case report

Minyu Zhou et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Myiasis is caused by dipterous larvae, and rarely affects the mouth. Diagnosis by traditional means is easy to be confused with other similar species. Here, we report a case of oral myiasis, in a 5-month-old infant who was diagnosed by morphological examination and molecular biological methods.

Case presentation: A 5-month old infant with acute myeloid leukemia was admitted due to recurrent skin masses for more than 4 months. The infant had lip swelling, which prevented him from closing the mouth and membranes were present in his mouth and there were also oral ulcers and erosions. Ten maggots were found in the mouth and one in the ear canal with pus flowing out and were confirmed as the third stage larvae of Sarcophaga ruficornis by morphological examination and a comparison of sequence of cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COX1) gene. After removal of the maggots and chemotherapy, the infant 's condition was gradually improved.

Conclusions: To the best of our our knowledge, this is the first neonatal oral myiasis case reported in China and its diagnosis requires a high index of suspicion. Microscopy combined with specific DNA sequence analysis is an effective technological tool to provide rapid diagnoses of the larva specimen and cases of rare diseases, as illustrated in the current case.

Keywords: Molecular identification; Neonatal oral myiasis; Nosocomial.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
View of the maggot under a stereoscopic microscope. a Appearance of the posterior spiracles. b Cephaloskeleton and anterior stigmas. c Appearance of the whole maggot
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Electrophoresis of the PCR-amplified the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COX1) gene products from larva DNA. Lane M: DL2000 DNA marker; Lane 1: PCR product without DNA; Lane 2: COX1 PCR product. M, Marker; DL, DNA Ladder; COX1, cytochrome oxidase subunit 1; bp, base-pairs
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The maximum likelihood tree based on the COX1 sequences obtained in this study and other related sequences using MEGA 6.0. COX1, cytochrome oxidase subunit 1
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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