Dipylidium caninum
Encyclopedia
Flea
Flea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood...
s, including canids, felids, and pet-owners, especially children. Adult worms are about 18 inches long. Eggs (or “egg clusters” or “egg balls”) are passed in the host's feces and ingested by fleas, which are in turn ingested by another mammal after the tapeworm larvae partially develop. Examples of fleas that can spread D. caninum include Ctenocephalides canis
Dog flea
The dog flea is a species of flea that lives primarily on the blood of dogs. The dog flea is troublesome because it can spread Dipylidium caninum. They are commonly found in Europe....
and Ctenocephalides felis
Cat flea
The cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis, is one of the most abundant and widespread species of flea on Earth.-Overview:The cat flea's primary host is the domestic cat, but this is also the primary flea infesting dogs in most of the world. The cat flea can also maintain its life cycle on other...
.
As in all members of family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Dipylidiidae, proglottids of the adult have genital pores on both sides (hence the name double-pore tapeworm). Each side has a set of male and female reproductive organs. The scolex has a rostellum
Rostellum
The rostellum is a projecting part of the column in Orchidaceae flowers, and separates the male stamen from the female gynoecium, commonly preventing self-fertilisation...
with four rows of hooks, along with the four suckers that all cyclophyllid cestodes have. In cats, sometimes proglottids are visible hanging out of a cat's anus
Anus
The anus is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may be one or more of: matter which the animal cannot digest,...
.
Inside fleas, eggs hatch and form oncosphere larvae that move through the wall of the flea intestine into the body cavity where they become cysticercoid
Cysticercoid
A cysticercoid is the larval stage of certain tapeworms, similar in appearance to a cysticercus, but having the scolex filling completely the enclosing cyst. In tapeworm infestations, cysticercoids can be seen in free form as well as enclosed by cysts in biological tissues such as the intestinal...
larvae, which are infective to mammal hosts.
In children, infection causes diarrhea and restlessness. As with most tapeworm infections, the drugs of choice are niclosamide
Niclosamide
Niclosamide is a teniacide in the anthelmintic family especially effective against cestodes that infect humans...
or praziquantel
Praziquantel
Praziquantel is an anthelmintic effective against flatworms. Praziquantel is not licensed for use in humans in the UK; it is, however, available as a veterinary anthelmintic, and is available for use in humans on a named-patient basis....
. The best way to prevent human infection is to treat infected animals and to kill fleas.
Although, D. Caninum is usually transferred via a flea, Trichodectes canis, the chewing louse of dogs, can also be the intermediate host for the tapeworm.