History for Management of Neurocysticercosis in Children

Understanding of Disease

• 3000–1500 BC mummies: Tapeworms were recognized in Egyptian mummies   At the time many considered pork as impure and its consumption was prohibited in some communities (14).
• 100–44 BC Julius Caesar: Julius Caesar’s epileptic crises have been considered by some authors to be related to NCC (15,16).
• 1558 first autopsy report: Rumler described liquid-filled vesicles adherent to the meninges in the autopsy of an epileptic patient (17).
• 1697 description of scolex: Malpighi described the scolex of T. solium inside a cyst.  At the time it was believed that cysticerci constituted a separate parasitic species, Cysticercus cellulosae (17).
• 1792 description of simultaneous larva and adult parasite infestation: Unanue first described the simultaneous occurrence of taeniasis and cysticercosis (17).
• 1855 relationship of larvae and T. solium: Küchenmeister provided experimental evidence that, after ingestion, C. cellulosae became T. solium within the human intestines (17).
• 1993 NCC was declared an eradicable disease: The International Task Force for Diseases Eradication asserted NCC could be eradicated (18).
• 2010 cysticercosis targeted by WHO: WHO added cysticercosis to the list of major neglected tropical diseases in 2010 (67). In doing so, it created roadmap goals of making available a validated strategy for control and elimination of T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis and for those interventions to be scaled up in selected countries by 2020.

Technological Development

• 1979-1980 introduction of antiparasitic drug: First praziquantel and later albendazole appeared for use against NCC (19).

Surgical Technique

• 1984 first use of ventricular endoscopy: The removal of intraventricular cysts with an endoscope was first described in 1984 (20).