Introduction
Gastrointestinal anisakiasis is a zoonotic parasitic infection caused by ingesting raw or uncooked seafood infected with nematodes of the genus
Anisakis.
Anisakis simplex is the most common cause of the infection [
1,
2]. Most cases of anisakiasis are reported from Japan, with approximately 20,000 cases occurring yearly [
3], possibly due to the Japanese culture of ingesting raw fish. In recent years, Japanese foods (sushi and sashimi) have become popular worldwide and are expected to cause an increased incidence of gastrointestinal anisakiasis [
4]. There have been reports of gastrointestinal anisakiasis in various countries and regions [
5,
6], and this disease has been recognized as a public health concern.
Anisakis larvae may parasitize the esophagus, stomach, small bowel, and colon; however, most gastrointestinal anisakiasis cases are gastric anisakiasis, representing approximately 95% of cases [
7]. Gastrointestinal anisakiasis is characterized by an acute abdomen, and the typical symptom of gastric anisakiasis is acute severe epigastric pain with a few hours after ingesting infected seafood. Other symptoms may include nausea and vomiting. Symptoms usually develop within 48 h (peaking within 6 h) [
8].
Gastric anisakiasis is generally thought to cause severe abdominal symptoms; however, we incidentally detected asymptomatic gastric anisakiasis cases during esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) for screening or medical checkups. To date, only a few case reports of asymptomatic gastric anisakiasis exist [
9,
10]; however, such cases are sometimes encountered in actual clinical practice. Factors associated with developing abdominal symptoms induced by gastric anisakiasis remain unclear. A previous study showed that
Anisakis simplex tended to penetrate non-atrophic mucosa more than atrophic mucosa, and patients with normal mucosal infections were more likely to exhibit clinical symptoms [
11]. Gastric mucosal atrophy is yellowish-pale and unsmooth mucosa mainly associated with
Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. Another group reported an association between clinical manifestations and
H. pylori infection [
12]. However, these studies were conducted at a single center with a small sample size and predominantly symptomatic cases; no study analyzing the clinical factors between symptomatic and asymptomatic cases in a multicenter setting with a large sample size exists. Therefore, we conducted a multicenter retrospective cohort study to investigate factors associated with acute abdominal symptoms induced by gastric anisakiasis.
Discussion
Anisakis infection can cause different types of disease: gastrointestinal anisakiasis, ectopic anisakiasis, gastro-allergic anisakiasis, and specific IgE-positive asymptomatic type [
16]. Gastric anisakiasis causes acute abdominal pain a few hours after ingesting infected seafood, and the mechanism of the occurrence of abdominal symptoms remains unclear. Physical irritation from
Anisakis larval penetration or type I and/or type III allergic reactions were considered one of the causes [
17]. In recent years, animal studies using rats have reported that
Anisakis larvae causes hemorrhages in gastric tissue and mixed inflammatory cell infiltration in neutrophils and macrophages [
18,
19]. In addition, proinflammatory cytokines and miRNAs have been investigated [
18]; however, their mechanisms remain unknown, which is an issue for the future.
In this study, a relatively large number of asymptomatic cases (22.2%) were found, and there may be more undiagnosed asymptomatic
Anisakis cases in clinical practice than we think. Moneo et al. indicated that the high number of specific IgE-positive individuals suggests that many asymptomatic patients remain underdiagnosed in endemic countries and that there may actually be more
Anisakis infections [
16]. Although the location of
Anisakis was not significantly associated with symptoms in previous reports [
20,
21], the greater curvature of the upper or middle third stomach was the most common site of penetration, and careful observation of this area is essential for diagnosing gastric anisakiasis.
Univariate analysis revealed significant differences in age, sex, liver cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, presence or absence of mucosal atrophy, and mucosal atrophy of the penetrating area. Liver cirrhosis showed a subtle result because of the minimal number of patients with positive results. Diabetes mellitus was more common in the asymptomatic group. Elevated pain thresholds have been reported in patients with diabetic neuropathy [
22]. Although their severity has not been investigated, patients with diabetes mellitus may be less likely to experience symptoms. Diabetes mellitus was not a significant factor in the multivariate analysis, and this may be associated with the age difference between the two groups. In general, the prevalence of diabetes mellitus increases in older adults [
23], and age may have been a confounding factor in our analysis. Multivariate analysis revealed that age, sex, and presence or absence of mucosal atrophy were independent factors for the occurrence of symptoms. The elderly and male patients were significantly more common in the asymptomatic group. This may be because pain thresholds may differ by age and sex. Although there are various opinions about pain thresholds, it has been reported that pain thresholds increase with age, and males may have higher pain thresholds than females depending on the type of pain [
24,
25]. Gastric mucosal atrophy was also significantly associated with abdominal symptoms; however, mucosal atrophy of the penetrating area was not an independent risk factor. These results suggest that the presence or absence of gastric mucosal atrophy, rather than mucosal atrophy of the penetrating area, is associated with the occurrence of symptoms. Furthermore, this study found that advanced mucosal atrophy was less likely to cause symptoms. Gastric mucosal atrophy is associated with intragastric pH, and mucosal atrophy results in elevated pH [
26].
Anisakis simplex is more active at lower pH values and its penetration rate into agar gel increases with decreasing pH [
11,
27]. It has been shown that symptoms disappear as
Anisakis activity decreases [
28], suggesting that differences in intragastric pH may have led to differences in
Anisakis activity and contributed to the differences in symptom occurrence, although the detailed mechanism of abdominal pain remains unclear.
Although not all cases could be examined, there were significant differences in
H. pylori status, WBC count, and percentage of eosinophils between the two groups.
H. pylori infection leads to gastric mucosal atrophy. Because gastric mucosal atrophy was significantly associated with symptoms in this study, it seems consistent that the
H. pylori infection status is indirectly associated with the occurrence of symptoms. In the symptomatic group, the WBC count was above the normal limit in approximately half of the patients. In contrast, all patients in the asymptomatic group had WBC counts within the normal limit. Although leukocytosis was infrequently observed in a previous report [
4], our results suggest that the symptoms are accompanied by inflammation. However, in the asymptomatic group, the timing of infection by
Anisakis was unknown, and the possibility that the WBC count was elevated immediately after infection cannot be excluded. The CRP level may not have elevated because of the short duration from the occurrence of symptoms. Eosinophilia has been reported to be infrequent in gastric anisakiasis cases [
4], consistent with the present study, wherein eosinophilia was less frequent in the symptomatic group. Meanwhile, the percentage of eosinophils was frequently elevated in the asymptomatic group; however, the number of patients was too small, making the interpretation of these results difficult.
This study had several limitations. First, this study was a retrospective design, and we could not investigate the
H. pylori infection status or laboratory data in all cases. In addition, it was impossible to search in detail whether there were any symptoms in asymptomatic cases (for example, patients may have experienced mild symptoms some time ago). In addition, we did not investigate whether abdominal symptoms improved after the removal of
Anisakis larvae in patients in the symptomatic group. Second, there was selection bias. These results may differ when comparing many cases because there may be more undiagnosed asymptomatic cases. Third, histological examination and molecular analysis of the removed
Anisakis larvae were not performed. In Japan,
Anisakis simplex is the major etiological agent of human anisakiasis [
29], although different species of
Anisakis are causative depending on the region. However, a previous study suggested that survival rates in gastric juice or the larval penetrating activity varies among species and that they express genes involved in pathogenicity in a different manner [
30‐
32]. The lack of a species molecular identification is an important limitation, and future analyses with species considerations are needed.
In conclusion, this is the first study to compare the risk factors for acute abdominal symptoms induced by gastric anisakiasis. Age, sex, and presence or absence of mucosal atrophy were the clinical factors associated with the occurrence of symptoms. Older and male patients or those with gastric mucosal atrophy were less likely to show acute symptoms, suggesting that some cases might not have been diagnosed with gastric anisakiasis. However, the mechanisms of symptom occurrence remain unclear and we believe that this study’s results will help clarify this issue.
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