Abstract
Cysticercosis is an increasingly important disease in the United States, but information on the occurrence of related deaths is limited. We examined data from California death certificates for the 12-year period 1989–2000. A total of 124 cysticercosis deaths were identified, representing a crude 12-year death rate of 3.9 per million population (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2 to 4.6). Eighty-two (66%) of the case-patients were male; 42 (34%) were female. The median age at death was 34.5 years (range 7–81 years). Most patients (107, 86.3%) were foreign-born, and 90 (72.6%) had emigrated from Mexico. Seventeen (13.7%) deaths occurred in U.S.-born residents. Cysticercosis death rates were higher in Latino residents of California (13.0/106) than in other racial/ethnic groups (0.4/106), in males (5.2/106) than in females (2.7/106), and in persons >14 years of age (5.0/106). Cysticercosis is a preventable cause of premature death, particularly among young Latino persons in California and may be a more common cause of death in the United States than previously recognized.
Highlights
Cysticercosis is an increasingly important disease in the United States, but information on the occurrence of related deaths is limited
Cysticercosis, an infection caused by the larval form of the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, is recognized as an increasingly important cause of severe neurologic disease in the United States [1,2,3]
Completed death certificates are transmitted from county jurisdictions to the California Department of Health Services, where the causes or sequence of events for each death record are keyed into a computer to create an input data file, which is subsequently sent to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which produces codes for both the underlying cause of death and multiple cause for each death record
Summary
Cysticercosis is an increasingly important disease in the United States, but information on the occurrence of related deaths is limited. Cysticercosis death rates were higher in Latino residents of California (13.0/106) than in other racial/ethnic groups (0.4/106), in males (5.2/106) than in females (2.7/106), and in persons >14 years of age (5.0/106). Cysticercosis, an infection caused by the larval form of the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, is recognized as an increasingly important cause of severe neurologic disease in the United States [1,2,3]. Several case series have been published [1,2,9,10,11], these have been facility-based efforts and, may not provide an accurate measure of either the incidence or severity of the disease Such facility-based reports have suggested that deaths from cysticercosis in the United States are uncommon. To measure cysticercosis-related death rates in California, we reviewed state mortality records for the 12-year period 1989–2000
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