This is a case report about a rare oropharyngeal foreign body causing oropharyngeal symptoms such as sore throat, dysphagia and hemoptysis. We reported a 7 year-old boy who had ingested a leech from a bottle which had been filled with water and it had attached to the palate within 4 days. The leech was identified as approximately 3 cm in length. Leech was removed under premedication by using mo...

a note entitled 'A Leech in the Nasal Cavity and Its Removalwhich prompts me to draw attention to ? method of dealing with the situation which may not be generally known, but upon which I stumbled by accident in Bakloh some years ago. An Officer of the local regiment brought to me his spaniel which had been afflicted for some days with a leech in the nose. "e tried the water treatment, but the ...

Objective: The principle of the use of leeches is associated with traditional medicine of many countries and its application has different philosophies for use in different areas of the body. Leeches, with all the benefits, can have dangers. Materials and Methods: A review of complications of leech therapy was done based on English articles indexed in the...

Four subfamilies of voltage-gated K"*" channels {Shaker, Shal, Shab and Shaw) have been defined that are present in many species to regulate neuronal excitability. The well characterized simple leech nervous system is ideal to study the roles K+ channels have in regulating neuronal circuits. As a starting point for studies to examine the role of K+ channels in well defined leech circuitry, we r...

Amiloride-sensitive Na+ absorption is a well-described feature of numerous transporting epithelia in vertebrates. Yet, very little is known about this important physiological process regarding invertebrates. In the present paper, we compare vertebrate Na+ absorption mediated by the amiloride-sensitive epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) and its invertebrate counterpart. We used the dorsal skin of the...

BACKGROUND Leeches are commonly used in reconstructive surgery for the treatment of venous congestion in flaps. Documented mechanisms of action are (1) injection of the anticoagulant hirudin; (2) active suction of blood; and (3) passive oozing of the bite wound. Even though the benefits of leeches in venous congestion are widely accepted, little is known about their effects in mixed arterio-ven...

Leech neurons in culture sprout rapidly when attached to extracts from connective tissue surrounding the nervous system. Laminin-like molecules that promote sprouting have now been isolated from this extracellular matrix. Two mAbs have been prepared that react on immunoblots with a approximately equal to 220- and a approximately equal to 340-kD polypeptide, respectively. These antibodies have b...

In contrast to mammals, the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis can completely repair its central nervous system (CNS) after injury. This invertebrate model offers unique opportunities to study the molecular and cellular basis of the CNS repair processes. When the leech CNS is injured, microglial cells migrate and accumulate at the site of lesion, a phenomenon known to be essential for the usual...

Patient: Female, 42 Final Diagnosis: Leech bite Symptoms: - Medication: - Clinical Procedure: - Specialty: Infectious diseases. OBJECTIVE Unusual clinical course. BACKGROUND Hirudo medicinalis (H. Medicinalis), also referred to as the medical leech, not only has been used by alternative medicine s...