[Fascioliasis of the liver. Differential diagnosis and questions of latency based on a case report].

A 49-years old female patient was admitted to the hospital with abdominal pain and symptoms of a shock. Four months before she had been sick and been an outpatient with slight pain in the upper abdomen and remarkable weight loss. The suspicion of perforated gall bladder was the indication to a laparotomy. A tumor on the right lobe of the liver was found. The histological diagnosis was: eosinophilic portal hepatitis with multiple eosinophilic abscesses in the liver. The parasitologic serology showed a positive test for Fasciola (liver fluke). Praziquantel in high doses was promptly effective and cured the patient. The sheep liver fluke is a common parasite of the biliary tract of herbivores all over the world, but rarely leads to a human disease. The patient had lived many decades in the South Pacific. The differential diagnoses was manifold because of the traveling habits, the clinical symptomatic and the course of the disease. The biology of the sheep liver fluke implies an infection acquired in Europe some weeks before the first symptoms of the disease.