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Step 1
Expect most patients with intestinal taeniasis to be asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic, requiring no treatment.
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Step 2
Provide anthelmintic therapy immediately to prevent cysticercosis if adult tapeworms are found in the stools. Praziquantel is the drug of choice and is administered as a single oral dose of 5 to 10 mg/kg for patients more than four years old. Niclosamide also may be given as a single oral dose of 2 g for patients older than six years. Patients between two and six receive 1 g and patients younger than two years should be given 500 mg.
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Step 3
Consider treatment for neurocysticercosis to be controversial. If anthelmintic therapy is given, it kills the encysted worms, which provokes an immune response in the central nervous system. This will require the patient to take high doses of glucocorticosteroids.
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Step 4
Perform surgery to treat ocular, ventricular and spinal lesions caused by irreversible inflammation resulting from anthelmintic therapy. The preferred treatment is usually surgical excision.
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Step 5
Treat complications of intestinal taeniasis such as appendicitis, acute surgical abdomen or an obstructed bile duct.
