The dwarf tapeworm, Hymenolepis nana, cancer cells linked to human tumors: CDC

It could even be that tapeworm infections in people get mistaken for cancer, the researchers said. “There’s no evidence that the malignancy was transforming the patient’s own cells”. The expansion sample was decidedly most cancers like, with too many cells crowded into small areas and rapidly multiplying, the U.S. CDC mentioned. The doctors contacted the CDC for help.

Atis Muehlenbachs, an agency pathologist in the special unit that investigates unexplained mystery illnesses and deaths, wasn’t sure what to make of the cell samples when he and his team received them in 2013. But the cells also fused together, which is rare for human cells.

One early theory, Muehlenbachs said in an interview Wednesday, was that they could be a new type of infectious organism.

Eventually – and, Muehlenbachs says, pretty much by accident – DNA tests confirmed the tumors were made of tapeworm cells. Peter D. Olson, Ph.D, a researcher and tapeworm expert at the Natural History Museum in London, provided information about the worms’ genetic data and helped interpret results. “The question was: Is this a weird human cancer with cells that are very small or is it a really unusual protozoan infection?” A barrage of tests showed the little clusters of tumor cells had the same DNA as the tapeworms.

The case was detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine and initially baffled doctors.

The researchers suspect the mechanism used by the parasite to avoid our immune system also allowed the tapeworm’s cells to proliferate unchecked in the Colombian patient, ultimately leading to the tumour.

For the primary time, most cancers cells originating from a standard tapeworm have been discovered inside a affected person with HIV.

The patient was very ill and his stool was full of tapeworm eggs, the global team of researchers reported.

The case study is worrisome for numerous reasons. “The host-parasite interplay that we report ought to stimulate deeper exploration of the relationships between an infection and most cancers”. However the motive was wholly completely different, specifically a hyper-immune response which will weaken a person.

A handful of viruses, including human papillomavirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and human T-cell lymphotropic virus 1, seem to lay the groundwork for cancer to develop. In recent years, many scientists have emphasized that the human body’s ecosystem is only made up of 10 percent human cells but 90 percent microbial cells. Efforts to treat the man’s tapeworms hadn’t killed the cancer.

Cancer is generally not considered to be a transmittable disease, although there have been very rare cases of humans passing on malignant cells to other humans through transplants and of certain animal species passing it to each other.

The results raised concern that other similar cases, if they occur, may be misdiagnosed as human cancer, especially in less developed countries where this tapeworm is widespread. As an alternative, Muehlenbachs referred to it as “an an infection with parasite-derived most cancers which causes a most cancers-like sickness”.

Freaky as the case is, it doesn’t completely upend what we know about cancer.

Another Connecticut scan, this one of the front of the man’s chest, shows another view of the tumors. He was HIV-positive and not been taking medications when in 2013, he went to his doctors with a cough, fever and complaints of weakness and weight loss. It’s possible that bolstering the patient’s immune system with HIV treatment might help vanquish the tumors. Docs in Colombia had accomplished biopsies on tumors discovered within the forty one-yr-previous’s lungs and lymph nodes. The dwarf tapeworm is the most common type, infecting 75 million people worldwide. Most do not show symptoms and clear the parasites quickly. Olson hypothesized that in people who have weakened immune systems, but, the tiny larvae manages to burrow through the bowel wall winding up inside the lymphatic system. The case research is worrisome for quite a few causes.