1. Life cycles of Fasciola hepatica and F gigantica (liver flukes)
Life cycles of Fasciola hepatica and F gigantica (liver flukes). A grazing cow ingests vegetation contaminated with metacercariae. Young flukes excyst, penetrate through the intestine, and pass directly into the liver parenchyma and bile ducts, where maturation of flukes follows. Undeveloped eggs are excreted via bile into stool. If this occurs in marshy or wet areas inhabited by host snails (Lymnaea), the miracidia within the eggs develop, hatch, and infect the snails by penetration. In the snail, miracidia become sporocysts that produce rediae that multiply and finally produce swarms of cercariae. These motile larvae emerge, swim from the snail, and encyst on nearby aquatic vegetation. 1–10: After excystation (1), the fluke passes through the gut wall directly into the liver and bile ducts (3). The mature fluke (2) produces large numbers of undeveloped eggs (4) that pass in feces from the host, mature in water (5), hatch, and release miracidia (6) that invade a suitable snail in which multiplication occurs through sporocyst formation and successive generations of rediae (7, 8), resulting finally in shedding from the snail of great numbers of cercariae (9). These swimming larvae encyst on aquatic or immersed vegetation (10), the source of infection of cattle and other herbivores or of humans. (Reproduced, with permission, from Goldsmith R, Heyneman D [editors]. Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. Originally published by Appleton & Lange. Copyright © 1989 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.)
Source: Protozoal & Helminthic Infections, Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2018
Citation: Papadakis MA, McPhee SJ, Rabow MW. Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2018; 2017 Available at: Accessed: December 25, 2017
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