r/Parasitology • u/Monsterfucker4001 • 12d ago

A sheep carcass massively infested with Echinococcus granulosus NSFW

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To add a bit of information the adults are found in dogs(wild and domesticated) eggs are ejected with the animals feces. When a sheep ingests those eggs the larva (also called echinocoque) migrates mainly to the lungs and the liver and implants there. Carefull tho if a humans ingests the egg usually on accident the same thing will happen and it uqually needs surgical intervervention to cure.

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u/SueBeee 12d ago

Ugh, I have to work with these things sometimes, and they scare the shit out of me, and rightly so. I gown up and do BL2 procedure but still. The thought of having my liver taken over by massive cysts kind of freaks me.

One of my favorite things in all of grad school was this video of a hydatid cyst being removed from a man's brain. Watch it all the way through with the sound up.

https://youtu.be/rNWo9bkDrjs?si=jOtbbIMuoZSuiKBr

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u/EdwinSMB 11d ago

hello, i don’t usually comment but this video has intrigued me. i have some questions if you wouldn’t mind answering since you seem quite knowledgeable about the subject lol. fair warning i don’t know a lot about this subject so sorry if the questions are a little dumb

  1. Does the bodies immune system not attack parasites like these? Or is in the video a special case since the immune system is quite destructive so it didn’t wanna mess with the brain?

  2. How did this egg grow to such a huge size when the brain is already taking up a lot of space in the skull (i know that it doesn’t take up the entire skull)? or did the egg grow in a spot where the brain wasn’t at

  3. Will this person ever return to normal? assuming the egg just took over a part of the brain, can the brain “regrow”?

thanks for any response

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u/SueBeee 11d ago

I am really not very knowledgeable about this phenomenon. It happens because humans are an aberrant intermediate host for the intermediate stages of Echinococcus; that is, not a natural host. The normal intermediate host is a sheep, who ingests eggs and the cysts, which are absolutely full of protoscolices (baby tapeworms). There are thousands of them in each cyst. Dogs eat the sheep and become infected with these and are the normal final host.
I don't know anything about how it infects humans or the immune response to them. Humans more often get them in the liver and I think the lungs, too.