[Clinical characteristics of trichinosis]

91 patients with trichinosis were treated at the Clinic of Infectious and Dermatovenereology Diseases in Novi Sad during a one-year period. In 64% of patients the onset was intestinal, while in 36% it was invasive. Diarrhea (in 28.89%) and abdominal pain (in 22.22%) are the most common symptoms of the intestinal stage. Nausea, vomiting and opstipation are less common. The main symptoms of the invasive stage are myalgia (65.54%), high temperature and eyelid edema (57.78%). Facial edema (38.89%), general weakness (24.44%), conjunctivitis (15.56%) and rash (8.89%) are somewhat less common. Heavy sweating, headache, nervousness, psychic instability and fast forgetting occur in a small number of treated patients. Myocarditis and encephalitis occurred in 3.33% of patients. There were 43.33% of patients with mild clinical picture, 40% with mild-to-severe and 16.66% with severe clinical picture. 54.44% of patients were males and 45.56% were females, and it can be said that sex did not influence the severeness of the clinical picture. The youngest patient was 5 years of age, the oldest 72. Most patients were 21-50 years of age but we did not establish statistical importance between clinical picture severeness in regard to age. The shortest period of incubation was 5 days, the longest 40 days. Average incubation period was 18.05 days (x = 18.05). Studying period of incubation and severeness of the clinical picture we established the following (x2 = 28.535). The shorter the incubation period, the severer the disease.