RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS
Open navigation menu

ORPHA:1560

Cysticercosis

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

10,916

Trials

6

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,054

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Cysticercosis is a parasitic infectious disease characterized by cyst formation in the target tissue of Taenia solium (tapeworm) parasite larvae ingested via the feces of a human with a tapeworm (human-to-human fecal-oral transmission) leading to variable clinical manifestations in muscle, the brain, spinal cord, and eyes. Infection of muscle tissue is generally asymptomatic. Cyst development in the brain and spinal cord is known as neurocysticercosis (NCC) and may cause and headache. NCC can follow a serious course and may be life-threatening. Severe cases of cysticercosis are treated with albendazole and anti-inflammatory drugs.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

tapeworm infection: [intestinal taenia solium] or [pork] · tapeworm infection: intestinal taenia solum · tapeworm infection: pork

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

4/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    10,916 matched papers (3,552 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    49 HPO annotations (e.g. Abnormality of the nervous system; Seizure; Cerebral calcification) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    2 FDA designations (2 FDA orphan-indication approvals) — e.g. oxfendazole Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    6 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

49

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0015484

  • Abnormality of the nervous system
  • Seizure
  • Cerebral calcification
  • Increased CSF protein concentration
  • Somatic sensory dysfunction

Showing 5 of 49 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

2

Designations · 2 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA oxfendazoleCysticercosis · 2017-08-07 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA oxfendazoleCysticercosis Neurocysticercosis · 2014-07-14 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

3

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0015484

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

4 associated chemicals. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Albendazole · therapeutic
  • Dexamethasone · therapeutic
  • Steroids · therapeutic
  • Praziquantel · marker/mechanism

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0015484

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

10,916

10,916 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

10,916 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

3,552 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 10,916 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,054

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Garcia HH9 papers · 2026

    Department of Microbiology, School of Sciences, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, San Martin de Porres, Lima, Peru; Center of Global Health, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima 15202, Peru; Cysticercosis Unit, Department of Transmissible Diseases, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Neurologicas, Jr. Ancash 1217, Barrios Altos, Lima, Peru. Electronic address: hgarcia1@jhu.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Winkler AS9 papers · 2025

    Department of Neurology and Center for Global Health, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Bustos JA8 papers · 2026

    Department of Microbiology, School of Sciences, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430, San Martin de Porres, Lima, Peru; Center of Global Health, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima 15202, Peru. Electronic address: javier.bustos.p@upch.pe.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Sharma R8 papers · 2025
    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Gabriël S7 papers · 2026

    Department of Translational Physiology, Infectiology and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, 9820 Merelbeke, Belgium. Electronic address: sarah.gabriel@ugent.be.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Arroyo G4 papers · 2026

    Parasitological Diagnostic Laboratory, Infectious Diseases Laboratory Research-LID, Faculty of Sciences and Philosophy, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Mwape KE4 papers · 2026

    Department of Clinical studies, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Ngwili N4 papers · 2026

    Health program, International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. n.ngwili@cgiar.org.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Stelzle D4 papers · 2025

    Department of Neurology and Center for Global Health, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Thomas LF4 papers · 2026

    Health program, International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

6

interventional trials for this specific condition

6 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

6 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 90.1th percentile).

low confidence · 90.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

6 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

4 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 2 · after dedupe 2 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 2 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (2)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Cysticercosis — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Cysticercosis" OR "tapeworm infection: [intestinal taenia solium] or [pork]" OR "tapeworm infection: intestinal taenia solum" OR "tapeworm infection: pork"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Cysticercosis" OR "tapeworm infection: [intestinal taenia solium] or [pork]" OR "tapeworm infection: intestinal taenia solum" OR "tapeworm infection: pork"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 6 interventional · 4 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (10916) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T17:43:58.438Z