Tick Bite in the External Auditory Canal; A Human Case Report

Abstract

Tick bites in the external auditory canal of humans are very rare. On July 14th 1997, a 65-year-old woman consulted our hospital, complaining of right tinnitus. She noted right tinnitus after walking around the coppice near her house two days before her visit to our hospital. Otolaryngological examination showed a hard tick bite on the anterior wall of right external auditory canal of the patient. Using local anesthesia, we made an incision around the bite site and removed the tick with connecting tissue. The tick body removed from the patient measured 4mm in length, 3mm in maximum width and 0.8mm in height. By acarological observation, the tick was identified as an adult female Haemaphysalis longicornis in the early stage of sucking blood. Ixodid hard tick bites are known to frequently communicate various kinds of microbial diseases to humans, including Japanese spotted fever, Q fever and Lyme disease. In cases of human tick bite, it is important to remove the tick completely and to identify the species in order to prevent these microbial diseases. We reported this rare case of a tick bite in the external auditory canal of a human as the 14th case in Japan.