Tropical (Filarial) Eosinophilia

Abstract

APPLICATION of the terms tropical eosinophilia, pulmonary eosinophilia and eosinophilic lung to the same clinical entity has led to considerable confusion in the medical literature. The illness was initially described from the tropics, with its main characteristics being extreme blood eosinophilia in association with paroxysmal cough and wheezing, scanty sputum production and nondescript pulmonary markings on x-ray study; weight loss, low-grade fever and adenopathy in some cases suggested a systemic process. Though this syndrome was probably observed much earlier, credit for the best initial descriptions of tropical pulmonary eosinophilia is generally given to the reports from India by Frimodt-Möller and . . .