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Medical Definition of Heterophyes
1. A genus of digenetic flukes (family Heterophyidae) parasitic in fish-eating birds and mammals, including man; cercariae from infected snails penetrate and encyst in fish, which are eaten by the final hosts. Origin: hetero-+ G. Phye, stature, form Heterophyes brevicaeca, a species reported from man in the Philippines and implicated in heart lesions caused by the eggs of this minute fluke, carried from the intestinal mucosa to obstruct coronary capillaries. Heterophyes heterophyes, the Egyptian intestinal or small intestinal fluke, a species infecting the small intestine and caecum in man and other fish-eating mammals in Egypt and the Far East. Heterophyes katsuradai, a species, somewhat smaller than Heterophyes heterophyes, found in Japan. (05 Mar 2000)