Estudio de cohorte prospectivo con un sub estudio de control de caso anidado, destinado a evaluar la incidencia de recaídas de convulsiones y su asociación con edema perilesional en pacientes con cisticercosis calcificada. Se incluyeron 17 pacientes de 65 años, atendidos en el Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Neurológicas, en Lima, Perú, con Neurocisticercosis y una historia de convulsiones y dolores de cabeza severos recurrentes dentro de los 10 años previos.

Background The parasite Taenia solium causes neurocysticercosis (NCC) in humans and is a common cause of adult-onset epilepsy in the developing world. Hippocampal atrophy, which occurs far from the cyst, is an emerging new complication of NCC. Evaluation of molecular pathways in brain regions close to and distant from the cyst could offer insight into this pathology. Methods Rats were inoculated intracranially with T. solium oncospheres. After 4 months, RNA was extracted from brain tissue samples in rats with NCC and uninfected controls, and cDNA was generated. Expression of 38 genes related to different molecular pathways involved in the inflammatory response and healing was assessed by RT-PCR array. Results Inflammatory cytokines IFN-?, TNF-?, and IL-1, together with TGF-? and ARG-1, were overexpressed in tissue close to the parasite compared to non-infected tissue. Genes for IL-1A, CS...

Taenia solium is known to cause human cysticercosis while T. saginata does not. Comparative in vitro and in vivo studies on the oncosphere and the postoncospheral (PO) forms of T. solium and T. saginata may help to elucidate why cysticercosis can occur from one and not the other. The aim of this study was to use in vitro culture assays and in vivo models to study the differences in the development of the T. solium and T. saginata oncosphere. Furthermore, this study aimed to evaluate the expression of cytokines and metalloproteinases (MMPs) in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), which were stimulated by these oncospheres and PO antigens. T. solium and T. saginata activated oncospheres (AO) were cultured in INT-407 and HCT-8 intestinal cells for 180 days. The T. solium began to die while the T. saginata grew for 180 days and developed to cysticerci in INT-407 cells. Rats were...