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ORPHA:2035

Lymphatic filariasis

high confidenceDisorder

Publications

9,221

94.6th percentile

Trials

25

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,265

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a severe form of filariasis, caused by the parasitic worms Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi and Brugia timori, and the most common cause of acquired lymphedema worldwide. LF is endemic to tropical and subtropical regions. The vast majority of infected patients are asymptomatic but it can also cause a variety of clinical manifestations, including limb lymphedema, genital anomalies (hydrocele, chylocele), elephantiasis in later stages of the disease (frequently in the lower extremities), and tropical pulmonary eosinophilia (nocturnal paroxysmal cough and wheezing, weight loss, low-grade fever, adenopathy, and pronounced blood eosinophilia). Renal involvement (hematuria, proteinuria, nephritic syndrome, glomerulonephritis), and mono-arthritis of the knee or ankle joint have also been reported.

How rare: >1 / 1000

Orphanet entry

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    9,221 matched papers (5,148 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot found

    No HPO disease–phenotype associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    1 FDA designation (1 FDA orphan-indication approval) — e.g. flubendazole Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    25 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (3 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

None returned for this Mondo ID. That often means “not linked under this ID,” not “no clinical features.”

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

1

Designation · 1 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA flubendazoleLymphatic Filariasis · 2014-01-23 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

9,221

9,221 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

9,221 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

5,148 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 94.6th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 9,221 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,265

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Lau CL13 papers · 2026

    University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR), Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Rahi M8 papers · 2026

    ICMR-Vector Control Research Centre, Puducherry, India drmanjurahi@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Jian H7 papers · 2026

    University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR), Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Lawford HLS7 papers · 2026

    University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR), Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Craig AT6 papers · 2026

    UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4006, Australia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Tatui P6 papers · 2026

    Niue Department of Health, Niue Foou Hospital, Alofi P.O. Box 40, Niue.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Viali S6 papers · 2026

    Oceania University of Medicine, Apia P.O. Box 232, Samoa.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Angrisano F5 papers · 2026

    Vector-Borne Diseases and Tropical Public Health Group, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Couteaux C5 papers · 2026

    Wallis and Futuna Health Agency, Mata'utu 98600, Uvea, Wallis and Futuna.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Fischer PU5 papers · 2026

    Infectious Diseases Division, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

25

interventional trials for this specific condition

25 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 3 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

25 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 95.5th percentile).

high confidence · 95.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

25 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

10 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 20 · after dedupe 19 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 19 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (19)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Lymphatic filariasis — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Lymphatic filariasis"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Lymphatic filariasis"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 25 interventional · 10 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-26T18:49:58.146Z