The tapeworm is a condition in which the patient has symptoms such as anemia, insatiable hunger, weight loss, pruritus ani, diarrhea, headache among others; This is caused by the infestation of a type of cestode parasite (without the complete digestive system), hermaphrodites, flattened back ventrally (with a tapered appearance), with a segmented body (presence of rings), which reaches the human body through the ingestion of meat with little cooking, specifically beef and pork, these parasites are housed in the small intestine and can grow up to 12 meters. These parasites are called Taenias (or the popular tapeworm).
If bovine meat is consumed with little cooking, the transmitted parasite is Taernias saginata, on the other hand, if pork meat has been consumed with little cooking, the parasite will host the infected host, it will be Taenias solium. These parasites have a fixation device called Escolex which makes it possible to differentiate what type of Taenia is being dealt with. The scolex of the Taenia solium has four suction cups together with a double crown of hooks while the Taenias saginata has only four suction cups; next to the scolex, the neck is found in both parasites and later the body or strobilus begins to segmentwhich is made up of proglottids, which can be classified into young ones, it is not possible to appreciate them well in microscopes, then they progress to mature proglottids that are characterized by being larger and testicular masses and uterine ramifications are appreciated and finally it is strobilus is constituted Also by gravid proglottids (called loops because they are filled with eggs), these allow to differentiate taenia solium from saginata since in one they are branched in a dendritic way and in another they are branched in a dichotomous way respectively.
The evolutionary cycle of these parasites is as follows; First, the infected man expels the gravid proglottids or eggs through feces, the bovine or pig animal consumes food infected by these human feces, by means of gastric juices the eggs hatch (explode) within the digestive tract of the animal and a larva is released that travels to muscular tissues, brain or eye of the infected bovine or pig, in these areas they invaginate to mature, then the human, when sacrificing the animal, consumes the meat with little cooking that the larvae of these parasites have in their state. infective called cysticercus, (cysticerco cellulae for taenia solium, cysticerco for taenia saginata) that finally fixes in thehuman small intestine.
