What is Tenioz?
Tenioz (taeniosis, pigtail, armed with taeniasis; angl., Schweinebandwurmkrankheit – German, taeniose – French) – a disease caused by flatworm related to teniosis, characterized by lesions of the small intestine.
Teniasis is more common in countries where they engage in pig production. Hyperendemic zone of spreading teniasis (with a pig lesion rate of 1.5–2% includes 3 extensive foci of global significance):
- Asian – the most powerful – China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Laos, Taiwan. In the Chinese provinces, swine invasion reaches 10 – 20%, Taiwan – 33%, South Korea – up to 22%, and others. Tenioz infected more than 150,000 people. In some of the States of India, up to 17% of people are infected with tineiasis.
- Latin American countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, and others. Pig infection there reaches 20%. Neurocysticercosis in Latin America affects 350,000 people.
- African countries: Cameroon, Madagascar, Zaire, Nigeria Causes of hyperendemia – low level of social and economic development, soil contamination with human feces: (toilet – pigsty), stray pigs and people’s eating habits.
Tenioz is registered in Belarus, the western regions of Ukraine (Rivne, Transcarpathian, Khmelnitsky), in the Krasnoyarsk Territory of Russia. In other places – sporadic cases.
Causes of Tenioz
The causative agent of taeniasis – Taenia solium (Linnaeus, 1758) – is armed with a pig string.
The body of an armed tapeworm has a flat ribbon-like shape, consists of a scolex, a cervix, and strobila, which has 800-1000 segments and reaches 1.5-2 m (less often 3-4 m) in length. From bovine pork tapeworm differs not only in the smaller length and number of proglottids, but also in the structure of the scolex and segments. An important difference also lies in the fact that the eggs of the pork tapeworm are invasive for humans, unlike the eggs of the bovine tapeworm.
The small-sized scolex (1-2 mm in diameter) has four muscle suckers and, on the proboscis, located on the top of the scolex, a double crown of hooks, 22 to 32 in number (hence the name “armed”). The immature segments of the anterior part of the strobila are asexual, their width is greater than the length. The hermaphroditic segments of the middle and posterior third in appearance and form are very similar to those in T. saginatus, but somewhat thinner, softer, more transparent. They have a square, rolling into an elongated shape and differ in the structure of the ovary, which is the main differential feature: the ovary in the hermaphroditic segment of T. solum, in addition to two large lobes (lobes) characteristic of the bovine ovary, has an additional third lobe located on that half segment where the genital tubercle.
Mature segment filled with uterus, consisting of a central trunk, with lateral branches, the number of which does not exceed 8 – 12 on each side. In addition, the segments do not have independent activity – this is an important difference. Each of them contains from 30 to 50 thousand eggs.
Eggs containing six-hook embryos – oncospheres, round-oval in shape, 28 – 40 x 28 – 38 microns. The outer tender shell of the egg in the external environment is rapidly destroyed and the oncosphere is covered, which is covered with a dense radially drawn yellow-brown shell. The oncospheres of the wine and bovine chain are practically indistinguishable; therefore, the type of teniid can only be determined by the morphological features of the isolated mature segments of the helminth.
The life cycle of pork tapeworm.
Pork tapewort – biohelmint. The circulation of the pathogen in nature occurs with the participation of two hosts. The final owner is a man, intermediate are domestic pigs, wild boars. In rare cases, a person becomes ill with cysticercosis, as well as dogs, cats, monkeys, as an optional intermediate host of the helminth.
Adult helminths are parasitic in the human small intestine. Mature segments separated from the strobila are separated or in groups of 5-6 into the external environment with feces only (their active secretion from the anus is very rarely observed). In the external environment, segments are destroyed and the eggs with oncospheres are released from them.
Intermediate owners – pigs, eating dirt, become infected with finnozom. The transformation of the oncosphere into the cysticercus – to the Finn in pigs the same way as the bovine tapeworm in cattle. Within 2-3 months after infection, more often in the intermuscular connective tissue, as well as in various organs and tissues, bubbly Finns (Cysticercus cellulosae) are formed – bubbles of size 6-20×5-10 mm filled with clear liquid. A head is attached to the inner wall of the bubble, equipped with four suction cups and a double corolla of chitinous hooks, as on the scolex of an adult helminth.
A person, eating Finnish pork meat, becomes infected with Teniosa, as evidenced by the secretion of joints during defecation, starting 2-3 months after eating meat. Adult worms can parasitize a person for decades.
Pathogenesis during Tenioza
In the stomach of a pig, the shell of the egg of the pig chain is destroyed, and the vacated oncospheres actively penetrate into the circulatory system of the stomach or intestines and are carried by blood through the body. After 24-72 hours, oncospheres settle mainly in the intermuscular connective tissue, where in two months they turn into Finn (cysticercus).
Cysticerci turn into adult parasites in the human intestine, where under the action of digestive juice and bile, the inversion of the head occurs, which is attached to the mucous membrane with the help of suction cups. The parasite begins to grow, forming segments, and in 2-2.5 months reaches maturity.
In the pathogenesis of teniasis, toxic-allergic reactions play a significant role, mechanical irritation of the mucous membrane by suckers and hooks, and absorption of the host’s nutrients.
Symptoms of Tenioz
Patients are observed disorders of bowel function, weakness, dizziness. There is nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, recurrent headaches, sleep disturbances. In some cases, neurological symptoms are associated with the possible presence of cysticercosis of the brain. Sometimes teniasis is accompanied by hypochromic anemia. Often, clinical manifestations are absent.
Changes in the blood are not characteristic, in some patients eosinophilia and hypochromic anemia are observed.
Diagnosis of Tenioz
Diagnosis of teniasis is based on the same methods that are used to diagnose teniarinhoses: a survey about the discharge of segments, their macroscopic examination and the detection of oncospheres under a scraping, imprint or feces microscopy. However, they are all less effective.
Oncospheres of the pork tapeworm are morphologically indistinguishable from the oncospheres of the bovine tapeworm. Therefore, when they are detected, the laboratory should give an answer without indicating the type: eggs or oncospheres of Taeniidae sp. Their species identity can be determined only after macroscopic examination of prominent mature segments, which differ in these helminths in the number of lateral branches of the uterus (in the swine chain there are 8-12, in bovine 18-32, counting from one side).
Treatment Tenioza
Previously, fenasal, an extract of a male fern and pumpkin seeds were used to treat teniasis.
Pumpkin seeds are taken for 1 hour inside on an empty stomach in bed – 300g of raw or pre-dried seeds, pounded in a small amount of water with the addition of honey. After 3 hours, take a laxative and after another 30 minutes put an enema. You can take in the form of broth – 500 g of crushed seeds per 450ml of water. Before taking pumpkin seeds, a two-day preparation is done – a diet, a laxative is taken at night, and a cleansing enema is given in the evening.
Vermomox is also used for deworming teniasis; when Vermox is applied, dieting and the administration of laxatives are not required.
Adults Vermox appoint 200 mg 2 times a day for 3 days. Children – 100 mg, 2 times a day, also for 3 days.
Prevention of Tenioz
Prevention of teniosis: meat and meat products should be purchased only in stores, and not in spontaneous markets:
- when buying meat on the market, you should require a document on the veterinary-sanitary examination and check whether there is a stamp on the meat;
- eat only well-cooked and roasted meat;
- in the process of cooking meat dishes do not try raw minced meat.
It should also be pointed out that, given the higher resistance of the Finnish pork tape to the effects of low temperatures, conditionally good meat must be neutralized by freezing (up to -10 ° C) and then kept at -12 ° C for 10 days.