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Chapter 59 - Cysticercosis and Neurocysticercosis

from Section 8 - Helminth Infections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2025

By
Ewan Hunter  and
Sarah Japhet Urasa
Edited by
David Mabey ,
Martin W. Weber ,
Moffat Nyirenda ,
Dorothy Yeboah-Manu ,
Jackson Orem ,
Laura Benjamin ,
Michael Marks  and
Nicholas A. Feasey
David Mabey
Affiliation:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Martin W. Weber
Affiliation:
World Health Organization
Moffat Nyirenda
Affiliation:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Dorothy Yeboah-Manu
Affiliation:
Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana
Jackson Orem
Affiliation:
Uganda Cancer Institute, Kampala
Laura Benjamin
Affiliation:
University College London
Michael Marks
Affiliation:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Nicholas A. Feasey
Affiliation:
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
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Summary

Intestinal infection with the pork tapeworm Taenia solium, known as taeniasis, occurs when a human, the definitive host, consumes pork that is infested with larval cysts of the worm. Affected individuals excrete thousands of T. solium eggs in their faeces and cysticercosis, in pigs or people, occurs when excreted eggs are consumed in contaminated food or water. These eggs produce larvae which actively cross the small bowel lumen and migrate to body tissues where they form cysts; the presence of cysts in the central nervous system (CNS) is known as neurocysticercosis. When viable cysts in the brain spontaneously involute and die the associated inflammation and subsequent calcification can act as foci for epileptic seizures.

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Principles of Medicine in Africa , pp. 576 - 578
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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