page_title: Echinococcosis
section_title: Signs and symptoms
hierarchical_section_title: Echinococcosis / Signs and symptoms
caption_attribution_description: English: High magnification micrograph of a liver cyst wall with laminations consistent with those seen in an Echinococcus infection (hydatid disease/cyst). Liver cystectomy. H&amp;E stain. No organisms are seen in the images and none were detected (elsewhere) by histopathology, presumably due to medical treatment prior to cystectomy. The laminated portion of the wall (seen in the Laminated liver cyst wall images) was separted from the the piece with liver (seen in the Liver cyst wall images). Related images Low mag. Intermed. mag. High mag. Intermed. mag. High mag.
context_page_description: Echinococcosis is a parasitic disease of tapeworms of the Echinococcus type. The two main types of the disease are cystic echinococcosis and alveolar echinococcosis. Less common forms include polycystic echinococcosis and unicystic echinococcosis. The disease often starts without symptoms and this may last for years. The symptoms and signs that occur depend on the cyst's location and size. Alveolar disease usually begins in the liver, but can spread to other parts of the body, such as the lungs or brain. When the liver is affected, the patient may experience abdominal pain, weight loss, along with yellow-toned skin discoloration from developed jaundice. Lung disease may cause pain in the chest, shortness of breath, and coughing.
  The infection is spread when food or water that contains the eggs of the parasite is ingested or by close contact with an infected animal. The eggs are released in the stool of meat-eating animals that are infected by the parasite. Commonly infected animals include dogs, foxes, and wolves. For these animals to become infected they must eat the organs of an animal that contains the cysts such as sheep or rodents.
context_section_description: In the human manifestation of the disease, E. granulosus, E. multilocularis, E. oligarthrus and E. vogeli are localized in the liver (in 75% of cases), the lungs (in 5–15% of cases) and other organs in the body such as the spleen, brain, heart, and kidneys (in 10–20% of cases). In people who are infected with E. granulosus and therefore have cystic echinococcosis, the disease develops as a slow-growing mass in the body. These slow-growing masses, often called cysts, are also found in people that are infected with alveolar and polycystic echinococcosis. The cysts found in those with cystic echinococcosis are usually filled with a clear fluid called hydatid fluid, are spherical, and typically consist of one compartment and are usually only found in one area of the body. While the cysts found in those with alveolar and polycystic echinococcosis are similar to those found in those with cystic echinococcosis, the alveolar and polycystic echinococcosis cysts usually have multiple compartments and have infiltrative as opposed to expansive growth.
  Depending on the location of the cyst in the body, the person could be asymptomatic even though the cysts have grown to be very large, or be symptomatic even if the cysts are absolutely tiny. If the person is symptomatic, the symptoms will depend largely on where the cysts are located. For instance, if the person has cysts in the lungs and is symptomatic, they will have a cough, shortness of breath and/or pain in the chest. On the other hand, if the person has cysts in the liver and is symptomatic, they will suffer from abdominal pain, abnormal abdominal tenderness, hepatomegaly with an abdominal mass, jaundice, fever and/or anaphylactic reaction. In addition, if the cysts were to rupture while in the body, whether during surgical extraction of the cysts or by trauma to the body, the person would most likely go into anaphylactic shock and suffer from high fever, pruritus (itching), edema (swelling) of the lips and eyelids, dyspnea, stridor and rhinorrhea.
  Unlike intermediate hosts, definitive hosts are usually not hurt very much by the infection. Sometimes, a lack of certain vitamins and minerals can be caused in the host by the very high demand of the parasite.
  The incubation period for all species of Echinococcus can be months to years, or even decades. It largely depends on the location of the cyst in the body and how fast the cyst is growing.
caption: Micrograph showing the characteristic laminated cyst wall.H&E stain.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XSi", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:08:13 18:42:40", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "192", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9118", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8400", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/13", "EXIF FNumber": "0", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:06:03 15:32:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:06:03 15:32:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "29/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2147483648", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1/3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "0", "EXIF SubSecTime": "79", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "79", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "79", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8994", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2136000/439", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "356000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}