Experimental trichinosis: parasitological, electrophysiological and biochemical studies.

Trichinosis is a parasitic infection affecting the gut and the muscles causing mild gastrointestinal symptoms followed by periorbital oedema, muscle pains, fever and eosinophilia. The infection evokes functional disturbances in physiological effector systems. Furthermore, several biochemical changes are associated with the infection. Therefore, this work was carried out to study the electrophysiological changes in intestine, striated and cardiac muscles by electromyography (EMG) and to assess the biochemical changes through measurement of serum cholinesterase and intestinal myeloperoxidase activity (MPO) in both light and heavy infected experimental animals by Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis). Electrophysiological results showed increased contractility of the smooth muscle layers of the intestine only early in the infection, whereas both striated and cardiac muscles showed increase in the contractility with the progress of infection in both light and heavy infection. Significant myocardial dysfunction in the form of bradycardia, in addition to major histopathological changes in the heart occurred from the beginning of the infection and increased till the end of the study. Biochemical study showed gradual increase in serum cholinesterase, while, the intestinal MPO showed increase only in the early stage of the infection. It was noticed that all changes were more pronounced in the heavily infected group than the lightly infected one.