Settesoldi A, Tozzi A, Tarantino O. Taeniasis: A possible cause of ileal bleeding. World J Clin Cases 2017; 5(12): 432-436 [PMID: 29291202 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v5.i12.432]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Alessia Settesoldi, MD, Department of Gastroenterologia Clinica, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Largo Brambilla, 3, Firenze 50134, Italy. a.settesoldi@hotmail.it
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Alessia Settesoldi, Alessandro Tozzi, Ottaviano Tarantino, Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, San Giuseppe Hospital, Empoli 50053, Italy
Alessia Settesoldi, Department of Gastroenterology Clinical, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Firenze 50134, Italy
Author contributions: Settesoldi A collected and analyzed the patient’s clinical data, wrote and reviewed the manuscript; Tozzi A designed the report and reviewed the manuscript; Tarantino O designed the report and reviewed the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The case report was reviewed and approved by the San Giuseppe Hospital Institutional review board.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of his information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Alessia Settesoldi, MD, Department of Gastroenterologia Clinica, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Largo Brambilla, 3, Firenze 50134, Italy. a.settesoldi@hotmail.it
Telephone: +39-055-7946254 Fax: +39-055-7947104
Received: June 29, 2017 Peer-review started: June 30, 2017 First decision: August 10, 2017 Revised: August 25, 2017 Accepted: September 13, 2017 Article in press: September 13, 2017 Published online: December 16, 2017
Abstract
Taenia spp. are flatworms of the class Cestoda, whose definitive hosts are humans and primates. Human infestation (taeniasis) results from the ingestion of raw meat contaminated with encysted larval tapeworms and is considered relatively harmless and mostly asymptomatic. Anemia is not recognized as a possible sign of taeniasis and taeniasis-induced hemorrhage is not described in medical books. Its therapy is based on anthelmintics such praziquantel, niclosamide or albendazole. Here we describe a case of acute ileal bleeding in an Italian man affected with both Taenia spp. infestation resistant to albendazole and Helicobacter pylori-associated duodenal ulcers.
Core tip: The novel contribution of our paper is to draw attention to taeniasis as a possible cause of gastrointestinal bleeding, since anemia is so far not recognized as a possible sign of taeniasis nor is taeniasis-induced hemorrhage described in medical text books. With this report we describe a case of ileal bleeding most probably caused by this kind of infestation. Our objective is to make clinicians aware of this rare but possible situation. Taeniasis should be therefore taken into account in the differential diagnosis of melena and/or hematochezia.
