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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
The most common types of tapeworm infections in humans are:
- Pork tapeworm (Taenia solium)
- Beef tapeworm (Taenia saginata)
- Dwarf tapeworm (Hymenolepis nana)
- Fish tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum)
A tapeworm infection starts after ingestion of tapeworm eggs or larvae.
- Ingestion of eggs. If you eat food or drink water contaminated with feces from a person or animal with tapeworm, you are ingesting microscopic tapeworm eggs. For example, a pig infected with tapeworm will pass tapeworm eggs in its feces, which gets into the soil. If this same soil comes in contact with a food or water source, it becomes contaminated. You can then be infected when you eat or drink something from the contaminated source. Once inside your intestine, the eggs develop into larvae. At this stage, the larvae become mobile. If they migrate out of your intestines, they form cysts in other tissues such as your lungs or liver. Invasive tapeworm infection is more common with pork tapeworm than with the other kinds.
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Ingestion of larvae cysts in meat or muscle tissue. When an animal has a tapeworm infection, it has tapeworm larvae in its muscle tissue. If you eat raw or undercooked meat from an infected animal, you ingest the larvae, which then develop into adult tapeworms in your intestines.
Adult tapeworms can measure up to 50 feet long and can survive as long as 20 years in a host. Some tapeworms attach themselves to the walls of the intestine, where they cause irritation or mild inflammation, while others may pass through to your stool and exit your body.
- King CH. Cestodes (tapeworms). In: Mandell GL, et al. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 6th ed. Orlando, Fla.: Churchill Livingstone; 2005. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/156207614-3/0/1259/2336.html?tocnode=51384605&fromURL=2336.html#4-u1.0-B0-443-06643-4..50291-9_9001. Accessed Aug. 23, 2009.
- King CH. Cestode infections. In: Goldman L, et al. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/156207614-3/0/1492/1272.html?tocnode=54627631&fromURL=1272.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50380-3_15831 Accessed Aug. 23, 2009.
- Craig P, et al. Intestinal cestodes. Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases. 2007; 20:524.
- Leder K, et al. Intestinal tapeworms. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Aug. 23, 2009.
- White AC. Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of cysticercosis. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Aug. 23, 2009.
- White AC. Treatment of cysticercosis. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Aug. 23, 2009.
