Taeniasis (adult intestinal tapeworm) is from eating undercooked or raw ("measly") pork. Definitive host (adult worm) is man. Normally the shed eggs (proglottids) are eaten by the intermediate host (pig/cow). The larvae (cystercerci) are liberated and released into the gut, invade mucosa, spread via blood and lymphatics to the muscles of the secondary (intermediate) host.
Cystercosis is an infex in man by the larval stage of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium. The oncospheres (larvae) spread hematogeneously and then encyst in the muscle and brain. (Moving larva can be seen in eye - yechh!) In 3-4 mon the larva has developed fully, by an invagination of the bladder (cyst) wall into itself. The larva is at the end of this invagination. The live larva is inocuous - dead and dying larva are irritating, and cyst capsule may expand by 5-20mm w/fluid. Slowly (2-3 yrs) the cyst will calcify. Usually of uniform size in the brain. The "racemose" multiloculated cysts occur in cisterns.
Cysticercosis and CSF
326/694 pts had "inflammatory" CSF
CSF eosinophilia (1-12% of leukocytes) was present in 58% of 326 w/inflammatory CSF; complement fixation + in 84% of pts with "inflammatory" CSF
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358/694 had "noniflammatory" CSF
4.3% had eosinophilia of CSF
22% had positive comp. fixation test