Stictodora sp. (Trematoda: Heterophyidae) recovered from a man in Korea

Two adult specimens of heterophyid fluke, which belong to the genus Stictodora, were collected from the stool of a 24-year old man after chemotherapy. The flukes were morphologically characterized by their small body size (0.90~0.98 mm long and 0.38 mm wide) and peculiar structure of ventrogenital sac with armed gonotyl (with about 12~15 spines) not enveloping genital pore. Species identification is deferred until more worms are obtained, although they closely resemble Stictodora fuscatum (Onji and Nishio, 1916). The patient used to eat raw flesh of mullets and gobies, which are regarded as the infection source of Stictodora sp., together with 3 other kinds of heterophyids described elsewhere. This is the first record of human Stictodora infection in the literature.