Rat tapeworm egg in dog feces
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 9:44 pm
I frequently inspect the feces of my small dog for parasites. Below is a photo of a tape worm egg that I have recently spotted in a fecal flotation sample.
Tapeworm eggs are shed only intermittently in the feces, so coprological flotation has only low sensitivity for the diagnosis of cestodes.
In this case I was a bit curious because I was not able to match the photo with any of the typical tapeworms canidates that infect dogs. A bit surprisingly I finally identified the egg as Hymenolepis diminuta (eggs of H. diminuta are spherical and measures 60 to 80 µm × 70 µm. The embryo within the egg measures 24 to 30 µm × 16 to 25 µm, three pairs of hooks (hexacanth embryo).
The information below on H. diminuta I have compiled from below article:
https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/helmin-2016-0032
Hymenolepis diminuta, also known as rat tapeworm, is a common parasite of rodents. Humans or dogs can be infected. Human infections are sporadic but occur worldwide and mainly occur in children. Humans get infected in case of ingestion of intermediate hosts (mainly grain beetles, flour beetles and fleas), possibly with contaminated flour, cereal products, or dried fruits.
Presense of H. diminuta in dogs are very rare, there is only very few data in the literature on the presence of H. diminuta in dogs. In many cases H. diminuta eggs in faces are considered as spurious infections, where just an infected rodent have been ingested.
It is not clear if in case of my dog it was a true infection…I will never know since I have instantly treated the infection with the appropriate deworming medicine.
I hope you find this article interesting. Does anybody in the forum also does coprological flotation for his pets?
Tapeworm eggs are shed only intermittently in the feces, so coprological flotation has only low sensitivity for the diagnosis of cestodes.
In this case I was a bit curious because I was not able to match the photo with any of the typical tapeworms canidates that infect dogs. A bit surprisingly I finally identified the egg as Hymenolepis diminuta (eggs of H. diminuta are spherical and measures 60 to 80 µm × 70 µm. The embryo within the egg measures 24 to 30 µm × 16 to 25 µm, three pairs of hooks (hexacanth embryo).
The information below on H. diminuta I have compiled from below article:
https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/helmin-2016-0032
Hymenolepis diminuta, also known as rat tapeworm, is a common parasite of rodents. Humans or dogs can be infected. Human infections are sporadic but occur worldwide and mainly occur in children. Humans get infected in case of ingestion of intermediate hosts (mainly grain beetles, flour beetles and fleas), possibly with contaminated flour, cereal products, or dried fruits.
Presense of H. diminuta in dogs are very rare, there is only very few data in the literature on the presence of H. diminuta in dogs. In many cases H. diminuta eggs in faces are considered as spurious infections, where just an infected rodent have been ingested.
It is not clear if in case of my dog it was a true infection…I will never know since I have instantly treated the infection with the appropriate deworming medicine.
I hope you find this article interesting. Does anybody in the forum also does coprological flotation for his pets?