Beef Tapeworm

Beef Tapeworm (Taenia Saginata)
1. Tapeworms (Cestodes) are Flatworms and lack their own intestinal tract
  1. Must obtain digested molecules from their environment (in this case from intestinal tract)
2. Tapeworms are hermaphrodites, having both male and female organs within the same worm
  1. Single worm can produce fertilized eggs
3. Tapeworms (Cestodes) are long and flat
  1. Tapeworms are composed in a chain of proglotitids (box-like segments)
  2. Tapeworm head (scolex) contains suckers, and for some species hooks
    1. Tapeworm larvae attach to the intestinal mucosa via suckers, and mature to adult worms
LIKE Pork Tapeworm, humans become infected via undercooked beef with larval cysts
1. Beef Tapeworm infection is often asymptomatic, but weight loss and Malnutrition may occur
2. Beef Tapeworm attaches to the human intestinal tract and matures to a long adult (up to 10 meters)
  1. Adult Tapeworm sheds egg bundles within gravid proglottids (worm segments)
  2. Proglottids are passed into human stool
    1. Proglottids and eggs may be found in human stool (under stool sample microscopy)
UNLIKE Pork Tapeworm, humans do NOT develop Cysticercosis from Beef Tapeworm egg ingestion
1. Cysticercosis is in contrast a result of fecal-oral ingestion of food contaminated with Pork Tapeworm eggs

Personal hygiene
1. Tapeworm eggs are infectious!
2. Practice good hygiene and Hand Washing before, during and after treatment
Praziquantel
1. Dose: 5-10 mg/kg orally for 1 dose
2. FDA approved for use in age >4 years, but has been used off-label for children age >=6 months
3. Repeat fecal microscopy at 1 and 3 months after treatment to confirm resolution