Sara Boland Microbiology-Saturday 8 a.m.

Article Summary 8/4/12

There is a disease caused by a relatively common parasitic worm that causes serious neurological issues including seizure, coma and even blindness. This disease is called neurocysticercosis and is caused by the cysts of tapeworms in the human brain. There are many serious symptoms that accompany neurocysticercosis including fluid on the brain and paralysis. Any area of the brain can be effected by this parasitic disease so symptoms are varied, which makes diagnosis difficult. Dr. Theodore Nash works at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and he sees the most serious of these cases. While he estimates that 1,500 to 2,000 people in the United States are affected by neurocysticercosis the numbers of infected individuals is much higher worldwide, especially in places where diagnosis and basic healthcare is nonexistent. There are between 11 million and 29 million people with the disease in Latin America alone. A diagnosis of neurocysticercosis is made through the observation of a patients MRIs which show blobs in the brain, coupled with the presence of antibodies in the blood. These blobs are actually cysts of tapeworms. Tapeworms usually infect pigs and are transmitted to humans through undercooked pork in their adult form but neurocysticercosis occurs when a person shedding tapeworm eggs infects food which is then consumed by humans. The tapeworm larva can get lost, traveling to the brain and setting up shop there. The brain is a terrific place for the larva to hide because there is tons of nourishment and they are fairly well hidden from the immune system. Not all neurocysticercosis causes extreme symptoms and so can go undetected. A tapeworm cyst that never develops will die and then is attacked by the immune system. This can be the end of the problem but the immune attack can actually cause inflammation of the brain tissue itself which will cause swelling of the brain. The treatment of neurocysticercosis isnt a sure science but patients who would simply die in the past are making complete recoveries. The drug praziquantel was developed in the 1980s and this drug is able to kill tapeworm larvae in the brain but it also causes an immune response which in turn, causes swelling in the brain. The treatment used by Dr. Nash and his colleagues is combination drug therapy using praziquantel along with drugs to hold the immune response at bay. Ideally an alternate form of drug therapy will eventually be developed but right now, the focus is on preventing the spread of tapeworm infection and this inhibiting the incidence of neurocysticercosis.