For the very first time, a cancer that has apparently developed from a tapeworm has been discovered to have something to do with its host developing a tumor. The uncovering of this incident has been dealt with filled equally with both awe and worry. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found an incredible phenomenon that started in Colombia and took almost 3 years of nonstop investigation to unfurl.
Researchers at the CDC's Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch (IDPB) found that a patient's strange cancer-like tumors had first developed as cancer cells inside a tapeworm known as Hymenolepis nana. Dr. Atis Muehlenbachs, lead author of the study, described his reaction in the New England Journal of Medicine saying how amazed he was when he and his team found that tapeworms growing inside a person actually getting cancer that spreads to the person and causing tumors.
The story began in Colombia two years ago when doctors found unusual tumor cells in the lungs and lymph nodes of a 41-year-old patient who tested positive for HIV. The medical team was not able to understand the biopsies. The cells looked like cancer cells - but none that they had ever seen before.
The cells multiplied quickly and were compressed into a small space, the way cancer cells normally are. However, specific cells were approximately 10 times smaller than typical human cancer cells, and some were joined together, which is a rare behavior for human cells.
The samples of the strange tumor were sent by the Colombian medical team to the CDC for further investigation. The IDPB spent most of their time to search for the origin of these cellular oddities. Eventually, they traced the DNA to H. nana. This was the voila moment of the study. Unfortunately, the patient passed away 72 hours later.
So the million dollar question remains to be, what is Hymenolepis nana?
Most commonly known as the dwarf tapeworm, H. nana is a transparent platyhelminth averaging up to 40 mm long and 1 mm wide. It is specifically common in temperate regions and where sanitation and clean water are not readily available. Of the 3,000 types of tapeworm known to utilize animal hosts, H. nana is the most common tapeworm found infecting humans worldwide
This kind of tapeworm is the only one that can complete its entire lifecycle within the small intestine of a human. The worm moves into its human hosts through food contaminated by rodent droppings or insects, or the most common way is by accidentally eating the feces of another infected person.
