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Love for Raw Beef Puts a Man in Tummy Trouble With 20ft Tapeworm

by Reshma Anand on Jan 22 2016 5:01 PM

Love for Raw Beef Puts a Man in Tummy Trouble With 20ft Tapeworm
A man in China, who loved eating raw beef, was found to have a 20-foot-long tapeworm inside his stomach.
The 38-year-old man had the parasite for two years and had been suffering from severe stomach pain, vomiting, anorexia and weight loss. He underwent several diagnosis and received treatments for abdominal pain and chronic anemia which showed no improvement.

Later he approached Renmin Hospital in Shiyan, where he told Dr. Jian Li that he had a habit of eating raw beef. Microscopic examination of his stool showed an embryonated egg containing an oncosphere.

After diagnosing this, Dr.Li administered him orally with praziquantel, and 40 minutes later, he received mannitol as a catharsis drug. Two and one-half hours after the administration of mannitol, the patient discharged a tapeworm that measured 6.2 m excluding the scolex.

The tapeworm was found to be Taenia saginata, a beef tapeworm. Humans are the only definitive hosts who can become infected with T. saginata by consuming raw or inadequately cooked beef.

After 3three months, he got completely recovered. The case report was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Reference:Jian Li, Ph.D., and Eping Guo et al. “ Taenia saginata Infestation,”N Engl J Med 2016; 374:263 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMicm1504801

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