Removal of Tapeworms in Humans

People become infected with tapeworms when they consume a food or drink containing the eggs and larvae of the worms. Tapeworms can often be asymptomatic, so you may not even know that you are a carrier. This is especially true of adult tapeworms in the intestines, which grow if you ingest the larvae of a tapeworm. However, if you consume the tapeworm eggs instead of the tapeworm larvae, when the eggs grow into larvae, they may leave the intestines and form cysts in the lungs or liver that could be potentially life-threatening.

Drug Therapy

• Tapeworms confined to the intestines are generally removed and killed easily by oral medications such as Biltricide or Albenza. The drugs enter your digestive track and kill and destroy adult tapeworm. They may have to be taken consistently for several weeks, or even months in some cases, because they do not target tapeworm eggs. As new eggs hatch into adults, the medication will need to destroy those adults as well.

Cysts

• When tapeworms spread outside the intestines and form cysts, drug therapy to kill the tapeworms may not be sufficient. You may need to take steroids to reduce inflammation caused by the presence of the tapeworms in tissue throughout the body, and surgery may also be required. The surgery may remove the cysts and the tapeworms, and in some rare cases organ transplants may be required to fully remove the tape worms and cysts throughout the body.

Ensuring Removal

• Treatment to remove tapeworms is successful in 95 percent of cases when tapeworms are confined to the intestine. In order to ensure that all tape worms have been removed, your doctor will usually request a stool sample one month after you finish your course of medication, and again three months after you finish taking the medicine.