Taenia Solium( Cystercosis)

Question 1

Life cycle

Answer 1

1) cystercerci ingested with raw or undercooked pork
2) cystercerci released from muscle in stomach and attaches to intestinal wall by scolex containing hooklets and four suckers
3) worms mature and live in the small intestine where they achieve lengths up to 10m
4) terminal proglottids, gravid with hundreds of embryonated eggs, detach from colony and pass in faeces.
5) pug ingest embryonated eggs, hatch oncospheres migrate to tissues, develop to cysticerci
6) the adults take about 3 months to grow to full length and may live in small Intestine for upto 5 years

Question 2

Who, where and what?

Answer 2

• pork tape worm
• endemic in South America, Central America, china, Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, sun- Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe
• no reservoir host

Question 3

Clinical diseases

Answer 3

• Asymptomatic

- proglottids migrate out of infected person overnight

Question 4

Diagnosis

Answer 4

• identification by microscopes examination of eggs, gravid proglottids with less that’ll 15 uterine branches
• identifying scolex
• use of DNA blotting
• sticky tape test
• PCR
• ELISA

Question 5

Cysticercosis

Answer 5

• infection with the METACESTODE form
• embryonated eggs ingested , oncospheres hatch in small intestine, enter blood stream and penetrate tissues –> forming cysticercus in muscle, eye, brain
• extraneural cysticercoid is usually a symptomatic but patients may notice painless subcutaneous nodules in the arms or chest or swelling of muscle tissue
• neurocysticercosis presents seizures, hydrocephalus, epilepsy and focal neurological abnormalities
• ophthalmic cysticercosis manifest as intraocular cysts floating in vitreous humor