An 18-year-old in India was taken to the hospital after complaining of pain and seizures.
His parents told doctors that the teen had felt pain in his groin for about a week. Doctors noticed he had swelling over his right eye, tenderness in his right testis and was experiencing tonic-clonic seizures (formerly called grand mal seizures).
An MRI of the teen's head "showed numerous well-defined cystic lesions throughout the cerebral cortex … and the brain stem and cerebellum … that were consistent with neurocysticercosis," Dr. Nishanth Dev and S. Zafar Abbas wrote in their case study for the New England Journal of Medicine that was published Thursday.
Doctors found cysts in the patient’s right eye and right testis, as well. Two weeks after arriving at the hospital, the teen died.
Neurocysticercosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a "preventable parasitic infection caused by larval cysts (enclosed sacs containing the immature stage of a parasite) of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). The larval cysts can infect various parts of the body causing a condition known as cysticercosis. Larval cysts in the brain cause a form of cysticercosis called neurocysticercosis which can lead to seizures."
How people get neurocysticercosis
According to the Atlanta-based CDC, a person gets neurocysticercosis “by swallowing microscopic eggs passed in the feces of a person who has an intestinal pork tapeworm.”
It works like this:
- A person eats undercooked, infected pork and gets a tapeworm infection in the intestines.
- The person passes tapeworm eggs in their feces.
- After using the bathroom, the person doesn't properly wash their hands, and may contaminate food or surfaces with feces containing these eggs.
- These eggs may be swallowed by another person if they eat contaminated food.
- The eggs then hatch and become larvae that find their way to the brain.
- These larvae cause neurocysticercosis.
Although some online reports of the case study attributed the tapeworm to ingesting undercooked pork, the CDC states that people "do not get cysticercosis by eating undercooked pork. Eating undercooked pork can result in intestinal tapeworm (only) if the pork contains larval cysts. Pigs become infected by eating tapeworm eggs in the feces of a human infected with a tapeworm" (emphasis CDC).
Gone are the days when pork had to be cooked until well-done to ensure it was safe to eat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidelines state “pork can be safely enjoyed when cooked to an internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source.”
There are an estimated 1,000 new hospitalizations for neurocysticercosis in the United States each year, the CDC says, adding that most cases can be prevented simply by thoroughly washing your hands after going to the bathroom.
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