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Toxocara in cats - advice please

Deetee

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Deetee
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Jul 8, 2003
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Our 5yr old cat has vomited up what I assume is a toxocara worm. She has been quite well, though hungrier than usual. It's a while since her last worming (6m -1yr). We will get her dewormed pronto, but I have a question for you vet types:

What is the risk of toxocariasis in our kids (youngest is 11)? I know ocular toxocara as a clinical entitiy is very rare in the UK, but I am still a little concerned, since I presume our cat, which goes everywhere in house and home, has been scattering eggs everywhere too, and we have all probably been exposed to the risk of inadvertent ingestion/contact.
Could the worm be something else (and therefore less worrisome)?
 
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BenBurch said:
I'd get the worm to a pathologist, and also worm-treat the cat.
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Stupidly, I never thought to keep it, with my wife yelping at me to get it cleaned up ASAP.
Cat being dewormed tomorrow.
 
Deetee said:
Our 5yr old cat has vomited up what I assume is a toxocara worm. She has been quite well, though hungrier than usual. It's a while since her last worming (6m -1yr). We will get her dewormed pronto, but I have a question for you vet types:

What is the risk of toxocariasis in our kids (youngest is 11)? I know ocular toxocara as a clinical entitiy is very rare in the UK, but I am still a little concerned, since I presume our cat, which goes everywhere in house and home, has been scattering eggs everywhere too, and we have all probably been exposed to the risk of inadvertent ingestion/contact.
Could the worm be something else (and therefore less worrisome)?
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I'm thinking your cat is more likely infected with tape worm. See your vet for the appropriate medicine.
 
A good all round wormer is needed, and as its so long they may have taken a good hold, so I'd see a vet, it may not be rid of in one treatment.
Toxicara is usually from dogs and foxes IIRC more than cats?
 
Your cat isn't likely going to be hurt by the worm. I like to have the worm submitted for positive identification but round worms aren't too difficult to id just by gross appearance. As far as a risk to your kids, I would ask you pediatrician about it. What are they seeing in that area? The real risk is for young kids who might happen to eat dirt where the cat has defecated. Dog ascarids are more commonly transmitted to people. I'm not sure what the risk is for cat ascarids. Here is the CDC site about worms http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/ascaris/prevention.htm

ETA: The real risk is in the poop. The eggs are shed in the poop and the larvae hatch out of it and then wait for ahost to ingest them. It's unlikely to be a real significant risk to your 11 year old unless he is eating the cat litter.
 
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As per Dog Doctor, the risks are not high, but do warrant the routine worming of dogs and cats.
 
I once saw a small, white, roughly triangular moving thing crawl out of ..... an orifice on the cat. I poked it a bit, it eventually ruptured and died. was it a worm?
 
That would be a segment of a tapeworm. Dipilydium caninum

Wiki doesn't seem to have an entry for the other contender, Taenia taeniaeformis.

Rolfe.
 
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In general you should have your kids wash their hands after handling animals. Make sure your pets are relatively worm free by regular fecal exams. In the case of tapeworms the control is perhaps easier. The vast majority of tapeworms are transmitted by an intermediate host. Actually tapeworms have (at least) 2 forms, one is a cyst that lives in the tissues of the intermediate host. The intermediate host gets the worm by ingesting the egg which is spread out of the tapeworm segment the little white worm looking thing that crawls out of the pets anus or stools. The whole worm lives in the digestive tract and is attached by a head to the wall of the digestive tract. The head grows out new segments which mature as the worm gets longer by producing more segments. The segments on the end break off and that is what is seen by pet owners. The segment spreads eggs as it crawls along and the intermediate host somehow consumes these eggs. The cyst form of the tapeworm grows inside these intermediate hosts and when eaten by another species develops into the tapeworm. The common tapeworm where I live is carried by fleas and the pets and (humans) get them from eating fleas. So if you must eat fleas make sure you cook them first and this will render them safe to eat. Other species of tapeworms are carried by mice or rats or rabbits or sheep or cattle or pigs or fish or frogs or...probably some others. All of these have a cyst form that lives in the intermediate host. Some of these can have a cyst form that will live in a human and those are the most dangerous. The cyst is acquired by eating the eggs spread by the tapeworm segment (proglotid). The most common tapeworm where I live is the one from fleas (and probably in most areas). If humans get the cyst form of the flea tapeworm it has yet to be identified. To control that type of tapeworms get rid of the fleas and there will be no tapeworms.
 
Dogdoctor said:
In general you should have your kids wash their hands after handling animals. Make sure your pets are relatively worm free by regular fecal exams. In the case of tapeworms the control is perhaps easier. The vast majority of tapeworms are transmitted by an intermediate host. Actually tapeworms have (at least) 2 forms, one is a cyst that lives in the tissues of the intermediate host. The intermediate host gets the worm by ingesting the egg which is spread out of the tapeworm segment the little white worm looking thing that crawls out of the pets anus or stools. The whole worm lives in the digestive tract and is attached by a head to the wall of the digestive tract. The head grows out new segments which mature as the worm gets longer by producing more segments. The segments on the end break off and that is what is seen by pet owners. The segment spreads eggs as it crawls along and the intermediate host somehow consumes these eggs. The cyst form of the tapeworm grows inside these intermediate hosts and when eaten by another species develops into the tapeworm. The common tapeworm where I live is carried by fleas and the pets and (humans) get them from eating fleas. So if you must eat fleas make sure you cook them first and this will render them safe to eat. Other species of tapeworms are carried by mice or rats or rabbits or sheep or cattle or pigs or fish or frogs or...probably some others. All of these have a cyst form that lives in the intermediate host. Some of these can have a cyst form that will live in a human and those are the most dangerous. The cyst is acquired by eating the eggs spread by the tapeworm segment (proglotid). The most common tapeworm where I live is the one from fleas (and probably in most areas). If humans get the cyst form of the flea tapeworm it has yet to be identified. To control that type of tapeworms get rid of the fleas and there will be no tapeworms.
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Dang, I was going to have flea tartare for dinner tonight. I've just gotten so tired of fried flea, I wanted to try something different.
 
Thanks.
The worm was definitely a round worm (cylindrical, about 3 inches long), and not a tapeworm proglottid.
I understand this is most likely to be Toxocara. (are there other possible round worms in the UK??)
I am not at all worried about the cat - she has been dosed.

What I wanted from the vets among you was an idea as to how likely it was that my exposed kids might get toxocara - in humans this can cause problems and migration of the immature larvae can rarely cause ocular damage (though as a medic, I have never seen a case).
Does the exposure need to be quite heavy before humans show any signs/symptoms? My admittedly light research indicates that probably this is so. Is that the understanding of you vets? Is it likely the cat could have had high density of infection and therefore been leaving masses of eggs through the house for many months on end? If so then maybe we have had an appraciable exposure to them, (though fortunately none of us have had any clinical indication of infection).
 
It's extremely rare. It's very unlikely your house has been massively contaminated - unless the cat craps everywhere and you seldom clean it up. Even if a person picks up a Toxocara egg, the chances of it landing anywhere where it will cause a problem are slim.

And I might be wrong about this, but I thought the visceral larva migrans problem was really only associated with Toxocara canis and that the two cat nematodes (Toxocara cati and Toxascaris leonina) weren't really implicated?

Rolfe.
 
Further research indicates that it is mainly T. canis (but cat toxocara can also cause it). My medical sources say: " People at risk for developing infection are not those who handle dogs or cats, but those who ingest soil containing the embryonated eggs."

So I am somewhat reassured, as none of us do this.
Thanks all


It also appears seroconversion rates are low in animal hospital employees (for T. canis anyway).

Glickman LT; Cypess RH Am J Public Health 1977 Dec;67(12):1193-5. The recent development of a sensitive and specific test (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) for Toxocara canis infection has made it possible to study the epidemiology of this parasite in man. Antibody to Toxocara was measured in veterinarians, kennel workers, nurses, laboratory technicians, and clerical personnel in an animal hospital (Animal Medical Center, New York, NY) in order to determine the risk of infection in persons with varying degrees of occupational and home exposure to pet dogs. Antibodies were found in 8 (11 per cent) of 73 employees, and the prevalence and intensity of antibody was not statistically associated with either job exposure or dog ownership. However, antibody was not detected in any of the 14 employees who denied both past and present dog ownership. Additional studies using larger numbers of sera are required to determine the significance of these findings.
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Rolfe said:
It's extremely rare. It's very unlikely your house has been massively contaminated - unless the cat craps everywhere and you seldom clean it up. Even if a person picks up a Toxocara egg, the chances of it landing anywhere where it will cause a problem are slim.

And I might be wrong about this, but I thought the visceral larva migrans problem was really only associated with Toxocara canis and that the two cat nematodes (Toxocara cati and Toxascaris leonina) weren't really implicated?

Rolfe.
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I don't know if they have tried to identify the species of ascarid involved in zoonosis. I'm not sure if the tests they use distiguish between T. canis, T. cati and T. leonina or Baylisascaris for that matter. I know T. canis is thought to be the most prevalent cause of zoonotic toxacariasis. Also the worm seen by the OP could be any of a number of worms and stuff like that is the reason I prefer to make a diagnosis from seeing the worm myself and examining it microscopically or at least from a fecal exam on the at. (I guess us vets aren't too much help here. :)
 
Looking around at the literature. Somehow they have identified numerous species of ascarids that can cause zoonotic diseases. Both T. canis and T. cati are recognized but without any references that I can look up. Baylisascaris is rising in prominennce probably as more doctors are looking for it. One of the problems with asking vets about human disease is that most of the scientific articles written about human disease are written in human oriented journals which vets don't necessarily have much interest in.
 
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