Stroke and vasculitis in patients with cysticercosis

Cysticercosis is caused by infection with the larval stage of Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm. This cestode has a complex life cycle involving both pigs and humans. In the usual cycle of transmission, humans are definitive hosts and carry the adult parasite in the small intestine. Eggs detached from the distal end of T. Solium are passed with feces to contaminate-in places where open-air defecation is common-soil and vegetation. Free-roaming pigs eat human feces and get infected with hundreds of eggs. After ingestion, eggs hatch into oncospheres in the intestine of pigs (the natural intermediate hosts). Then, oncospheres cross the intestinal wall, enter the bloodstream, and are carried into the tissues of the pig where larvae (cysticercus) develop. When humans ingest improperly cooked pork infected with cysticerci, larvae evaginate in the small intestine, get attached to the intestinal wall, and begin forming proglottides, thus completing the life cycle of T. Solium. Humans also become intermediate hosts of this parasite by ingesting its eggs from the soil or from contaminated food handled by a taenia carrier, or directly by the fecal-oral route in individuals harboring the adult parasite. In these cases, human cysticercosis develops (Garcia et al., 2003). Cysticerci usually invade the central nervous system (CNS) and its coverings, causing neurocysticercosis (NCC), a severe disease that constitutes a threat to millions of people living in developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.