A rare case of disseminated cysticercosis: Case report and literature review

Abstract

Cysticercosis is a common tropical disease. One of the uncommon manifestations of cysticercosis and a rare complication is its disseminated form. We report an immunocompetent patient with disseminated cysticercosis who had involvement of the brain, subcutaneous tissues, lungs and skeletal muscles and presented with arthritis. He was otherwise asymptomatic in spite of the extensive involvement of multiple organs. A planned approach to therapy is necessary to prevent complications.

Two cases of pulmonary cysticercosis manifesting as pleural effusion: case report and literature review

“…The heart, lungs or the other tissues are occasionally affected. The clinical features depend on the location of the cysticerci, the cysticerci burden and the host reaction (5). The rarity of pulmonary involvement by cysticerci can be explained by the life cycle of Taenia solium parasite.…”

Uncommon Clinical Manifestations of Cysticercosis

“…[10,240,242,247,251 ] and others. [241,[252][253][254][255] Anatomical structures within the thoracic cavity include: structures of the cardiovascular system, including the heart where cardiac cysticercosis can be seen. [10,247,248,[256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266][267] Parasitic diseases may involve various anatomic structures of the heart which can be manifested clinically as myocarditis, cardiomyopathies, pericarditis, or pulmonary hypertension in many resource-constrained settings.…”

“…Searches of the literature and enquiries from appropriate specialists have failed to produce any record of similar cases. Kumar e al., [304] studied a 62-years old man presented with complaints of pain in the large peripheral joints with limitation of movement for two months. Fine needle aspiration cytology of the nodular eruptions over joints demonstrated negatively birefringent needle shaped crystals while that of calcific lesion in soft tissue demonstrated cysticercus cellulose with scolex.…”

What is a Low Frequency of the Disseminated Cysticercosis Suggests that Neurocysticercosis is Going to Disappear?

“…On the other hand, have been confirmed cases with DCC and chronic liver disease in which case even if the ELISA test was suggestive, the final diagnosis was obtained by CT scans of the brain [43], and have been reported cases with unilateral eye lesion [44], and even bilaterally [80], thyroid involvement [8,45] , pancreatic enzyme alterations [46] or without clinical or biochemical alterations of pancreatic function [47], spleen damage [47,47], cardiac [8,[48][49][50][51][52][53], even without associated DCC [52], lung [45,[53][54][55], joints [56] and muscles of the face and neck [44,48]. There is not reported cases of DCC without involvement of CNS and its frequency may be the expression of an increase or decrease in the overall prevalence of porcine cysticercosis in general [1].…”

“…Usually both 'healthy' (active) and 'involuted' (inactive) cysticerci lack inflammatory response, which is restricted to 'currently degenerating' cysts whose ability to evade host defenses is becoming faulty. Involution of cysts implies granulomatous inflammation [56].…”