**11. Hydatidosis (Echinococcosis)**

Hydatidosis is one of the oldest known diseases of the human being. This disease was described by the Egyptians in a document dating back to 1534 BC, as mentioned by the Babylonians in the Bible Talmud. It described the cyst as a bladder filled with fluid [40]. This disease arises from the formation of hydatid cysts of different sizes in different locations such as the liver and lungs in both animals and humans, and the severity of the disease depends on the number of cysts, size, and location. These cysts may lead to loss of human life in addition to economic losses in the field of livestock; the incidence of this disease is high in humans because its risk is that it is detected only by chance during radiological examinations or various surgical operations, but in animals, it is discovered during routine detection in massacres [1].

The cause of hydatidosis disease is due to two important factors. The first is that it is not possible to know the infection in the early stages since the onset of the disease because it does not show symptoms until the cyst has increased in size of the cyst, which puts pressure on the adjacent tissues [41]. The second factor is the loss of therapeutic means, and the disease is very similar to the severity of its metastasis in the metastasis stage [42]. These cysts are found in all parts of the body except hair and nails [43].

This disease is one of the endemic diseases in Iraq and it has an economic, social and health impact on the human, so conducted many studies and research to investigate methods of treatment, which surgical intervention is the most important of these methods, although the patient is exposed to many problems during surgery which may be difficult to perform at times and cannot be performed at other times [44, 45], or the patient is not surgically qualified or as a result of other serious diseases such as immune compromised patients or because of age or anesthesia or the occurrence of the cyst in places difficult for the surgeon to deal with, such as in the cysts of the heart, brain or spine, so the importance of the use of extracts of a different chemical nature treatment of aquatic cyst disease [46].

## **12. Clinical symptoms of hydatidosis**

Hydatis cyst disease (HCD) is slow at the onset of infection and unseen due to slow growth and development of the cyst, which reaches a diameter of about 10–1 mm per year [33]. The appearance of clinical signs depends on the location of the affected organ, the size of the cyst, its location within the affected organ, the stages of its development, and the fertility of its components with the interaction between the related cysts between adjacent organs, especially between the hepatic vessels and bile ducts [47]. In humans, the symptoms are dependent on the affected organ, and the liver is the most exposed organ, with a rate of about 70–60%, followed by lungs 22–20%, spleen, heart, muscles, eye, and thyroid gland 6%, and the kidneys, brain, and bones 1% and don't hardly any organ of body free from hydatid cyst except teeth, nails and hair [48].

Symptoms in the liver are: an enlarged, and it becomes sensitive when palpated with liver abscesses, in addition abdominal pain, vomiting and nausea, as well as an increase in hepatic blood pressure and in cavity of the lower vena cava also there secondary fibrosis in the ducts bile, the hydatid cyst causes significant pressure on the diaphragm when adhesion to it and leads to a breach and exit of the contents of the cyst in the chest [49]. In the lung, clinical symptoms depend on the size of the cyst and its condition whether it is healthy or torn, causing the presence of pressure of cyst inside the lobes of the lung [50] with varying severity of chest pain and coughing, hemoptysis, shortness of breath, and hemorrhage, and in the lungs, these symptoms do not appear at the first sight of the disease [51–53]. When the cyst penetrates into the pulmonary vesicles, it is a suitable environment for fungal and bacterial infections, leading to pneumonia after infection and thus destroying the lung [54].

The explosion of the hydatid cyst inside the abdominal cavity leads to a shock known as anaphylactic shock due to acute allergic reactions, and this shock leads to the severe spread of secondary cysts in the affected organ and adjacent organs, and is sometimes followed by the explosion of the cyst at any site within the body leaking its contents into the blood circulation that leads to headaches and other complications that may lead to sudden death [28].

The symptoms develop even when the cyst is small, and most cases of cerebral cyst disease were diagnosed in children [11]. This infection is serious that sometimes it leads to death; cysts in the eye are rare and cause an external tumor of the eye, dysfunction of vision, exophthalmoses, and sometimes blindness around the eyelid [17].

In the bones, cystic hydatid disease often leads to fracture because of the gradual erosion of the cortex and shows symptoms in the form of pain in the upper and lower extremities, and bone bags are abnormal in the form where the laminar layer does not form [55].

In animals, the infection is hidden, and they may be slaughtered sometimes before the onset of symptoms [56]. The severity of the symptoms varies depending on the severity of the disease and the location of the hydatid cyst. Clinical signs generally appear in the affected animal such as decrease in milk production, poor wool, and organ damage in the affected area [57, 58].

#### **13. Conclusion**

The current review included the identification of the *E. granulosus* worm and its intermediate and final hosts. The canine family represents the final host, while the human and farm animals represent the intermediate hosts. Several strains of *E. granulosus* were also observed such as G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7, G8, G9, and G10.

**55**

Iraq

**Author details**

and Baheeja A. Hmood2

AL-Qadisiyah, Iraq

khadeejaalkhalidi@gmail.com

provided the original work is properly cited.

Khadeeja Abees Hmood Al-Khalidi1

Echinococcus granulosus

**Acknowledgements**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90708*

The authors thank the Central Library, Library College of Science/University of

\*, Hiba Riyadh Al-Abodi1

1 Department of Environment, College of Sciences, University of AL-Qadisiyah,

2 Department of Medical and Basic Science, College of Nursing, University of

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*Address all correspondence to: khadeeja.abees@qu.edu.iq;

, Hayder Kamil Jabbar2

Al-Qadisiyah, for providing them with the references adopted in this chapter.
