Alveolar and polycystic echinococcosis are rarely diagnosed in humans and are not as widespread as cystic echinococcosis, but polycystic echinococcosis is relatively new on the medical scene and is often left out of conversations dealing with echinococcosis, and alveolar echinococcosis is a serious disease that has a significantly high fatality rate, and may have the potential to become an emerging disease in many countries. Cystic
A formal diagnosis of any type of echinococcosis requires a combination of tools that involve imaging techniques, histopathology, or nucleic acid detection and serology. For cystic echinococcosis diagnosis, imaging is the main method—while serology tests (such as indirect hemagglutination, ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay), immunoblots or latex agglutination) that use antigens specific for E. granulosus verify the imaging results. The imaging technique of choice for cystic echinococcosis is ultrasonography, since it is not only able to visualize the cysts in the bodys organs, but it is also inexpensive, non-invasive and gives instant results. In addition to ultrasonography, both MRI and CT scans can and are often used although an MRI is often preferred to CT scans when diagnosing cystic echinococcosis since it gives better visualization of liquid areas within the tissue. Alveolar
As with cystic echinococcosis, ultrasonography is the imaging technique of choice for alveolar echinococcosis and is usually complemented by CT scans since CT scans are able to detect the largest number of lesions and calcifications that are characteristic of alveolar echinococcosis. MRIs are also used in combination with ultrasonography though CT scans are preferred.
multilocularis mainly occurs in the Northern hemisphere, including central Europe and the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. However, its distribution was not always like this. For instance, until the end of the 1980s, E. multilocularis endemic areas in Europe were known to exist only in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. But during the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a shift in the distribution of E. multilocularis as the infection rate of foxes escalated in certain parts of France and Germany.As a result, several new endemic areas were found in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria and surrounding countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, and Italy. There is also evidence showing that the Baltic Countries are endemic areas.While alveolar echinococcosis is not extremely common, it is believed that in the coming years it will be an emerging or re-emerging disease in certain countries as a result of E. multilocularis’ ability to spread.Unlike the previous two species of Echinococcus, E. vogeli and E. oligarthrus are limited to Central and South America. Furthermore, infections by E. vogeli and E. oligarthrus (polycystic echinococcosis) are considered to be the rarest form of echinococcosis. Deaths
As of 2010 it caused about 1200 deaths, down from 2000 in 1990. History
Echinococcosis is a disease that has been recognized by humans for centuries. There has been mention of it in the Talmud. It was also recognized by ancient scholars such as Hippocrates, Aretaeus, Galen and Rhazes.