Tapeworm

A parasitic worm of the class Cestoidea; a segmented an ribbon-like flatworm. It develops in the alimentary canals or vertebrates.

A metazoan, pathogenic to humans.

A parasitic worm with a small head and long body like a ribbon. Tapeworms enter the intestine when a person eats raw meat or fish. The worms attach themselves with hooks to the side of the intestine and grow longer by adding sections to their bodies.

Any of a group of flatworms that have a long thin ribbonlike body and live as parasites in the intestines of man and other vertebrates. The body of a tapeworm consists of a head (scolex), a short neck, and a strobila made up of a chain of separate segments (proglottides). Mature proglottides, full of eggs, are released from the free end of the worm and pass out in the host’s stools. Eggs are then ingested by an intermediate host, in whose tissues the larval stages develop. Man is the primary host for some tapeworms. However, other genera are also medically important.

Any of the species of worms of the class Cestoda, phylum Platyhelminthes; all are intestinal parasites of humans and other animals. A typical tapeworm consists of a scolex, with hooks and suckers for attachment, and a series of a few to several thousand segments, or proglottids. New proglottids develop at the scolex, so that a worm is actually a linear colony of immature, mature, and gravid proglottids; adult worms range from less than an inch to 50 ft or more, depending on the species. The terminal proglottids, which contain fertilized eggs, break off and pass from the host in the feces. The eggs develop into small, hooked embryos, which, when ingested by the proper intermediate host (usually another vertebrate such as a pig), develop into encysted larvae (cysticerci) in the muscle tissue. Humans acquire tapeworm infestation by eating undercooked meat that contains the cysticerci.