title: Diagnostic significance of blood eosinophilia in returning travelers.
abstract: This study was conducted to investigate the predictive value of blood eosinophilia (total white blood cell count with > or =8% eosinophils) for the diagnosis of travel-related infections in 14,298 patients who returned from developing countries. The data show that blood eosinophilia in travelers returning from developing countries has only limited predictive value for the presence of travel-related infections. However, the likelihood of the presence of helminth infections increases considerably with the extent of eosinophilia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, University of Munich, Germany. cschulte@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schulte
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Krebs
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jelinek
authors.forename: H D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Nothdurft
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: von Sonnenburg
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Löscher
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004802:Eosinophilia / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006373:Helminthiasis / Q000150:complications* / Q000276:immunology; D006376:Helminths; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014195:Travel