[Pathomorphological changes in the liver in experimental superinvasive opisthorchiasis]

Experimental model of Opisthorchis felineus superinvasion was reproduced in 30 piglets aged 3 months. The pigs were infected by feeding them 100 g of sausage fish with the mean invasion intensity of 0.8-1 metacercaria per g of muscle tissue. A repeated infestation with a similar dose was carried out in a month. The invasion developed in 14 of the 30 animals. Histologic examinations of the liver, carried out in 2.5 months after the first infestation, have revealed diffuse persistent hepatitis in 9 animals and aggressive hepatitis in 4. Proliferative changes in the epithelium of the intrahepatic gall ducts with polyposis and diffuse focal infiltration of the wall mucosa with plasma and lymphoid cells, fibroblasts and eosinophils were found, characteristic of human opisthorchiasis. Pigs may be used as a model for experimental opisthorchiasis in research.