Subcutaneous cysticercosis identified in chest radiography

The recent clinical image by Kumar and Mohan is very interesting1. In fact, the finding is not extremely uncommon in tropical countries. Based on our experience in Thailand, the prevalence is about 1/1000. An important consideration is the presumptive diagnosis of subcutaneous cysticercosis. Indeed, another important parasitosis that might present similar finding in chest radiography is sparganosis. Sparganosis can be in subcutaneous form and this is hardly to be discriminated from subcutaneous cysticercosis2. The definitive diagnosis still requires histopathological examination. Finally, Kumar and Mohan1 also mentioned for autoinfection as a rare mode of disease transmission. It should be noted that this mechanism in human is still controversial although there is strong evidence in experimental animal study3.