Re: what is a cyst?

Where did you get this great diagram? Can you please post the link?

From Wikipeadia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taenia_solium


This infection is caused by ingestion of eggs shed in the feces of a human tapeworm carrier. Pigs and humans become infected by ingesting eggs or gravid proglottids. Humans are infected either by ingestion of food contaminated with feces containing eggs, or by autoinfection. In the latter case, a human infected with adult T. solium can ingest eggs produced by that tapeworm, either through fecal contamination or, possibly, from proglottids carried into the stomach by reverse peristalsis. Once eggs are ingested, oncospheres hatch in the intestine, invade the intestinal wall, and migrate to striated muscles, as well as the brain, liver, and other tissues, where they develop into cysticerci. In humans, cysts can cause serious sequelae if they localize in the brain, resulting in neurocysticercosis. The parasite life cycle is completed, resulting in human tapeworm infection, when humans ingest undercooked pork containing cysticerci. Cysts evaginate and attach to the small intestine by their scolex. Adult tapeworms develop, (up to 2 to 7 m in length and produce less than 1000 proglottids, each with approximately 50,000 eggs) and reside in the small intestine for years.




and from MedicineNet.com

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5706


Taenia solium: The pork tapeworm. Contracted from eating undercooked or measly pork (pork infected with the larval forms of the tapeworm). Taenia solium causes two different diseases -- taeniasis and cysticercosis.

Taeniasis develops when the adult tapeworm infests the human intestine. The worm can grow to be 3-6 feet (0.9-1.8 m) long there. It usually causes no symptoms but the host becomes a continuous source of taenia eggs in the feces which may contaminate food.

Cysticercosis develops when people (or pigs) eat food contaminated with taenia eggs. The eggs cross the digestive tract, enter the circulation, and lodge in the tissues (usually the brain or muscles).

The life cycle proceeds as humans ingest undercooked pork containing the cysticercus (larva); the worm emerges and anchors in the intestinal wall, and the worm grows and becomes a new and continuous source of contamination.

Also known as the armed tapeworm, solitary tapeworm and the measly tapeworm. Synonyms include Taenia armata and Taenia dentata.