Taenia in the Gastrointestinal Tract

Abstract

To the Editor: Liao and Bair (Sept. 6 issue)1 describe a tapeworm in a 60-year-old woman from a community where pork and pork liver are eaten, especially at festivals, and suggest infection with Taenia solium (the pork tapeworm) rather than T. saginata (the beef tapeworm). It is possible that the infection was caused instead by Asian taenia (T. asiatica, T. saginata asiatica), which has been reported in aborigines in Taiwan,2 with subsequent reports from other Asian countries: Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China.3,4 T. asiatica is believed to be transmissible only through ingestion of pig viscera . . .