A common tapeworm gave a Colombian homosexual cancer, killed his ass.

[One Gay Experience Causes HIV-AIDS]

In our hypochondriacal world where all symptoms inexplicably
lead to cancer, the case of one unlucky Colombian man is sure to
rattle some nerves.

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) say they've stumbled upon the first known case of a
parasite that transferred cancerous tumors to its human host. In
this case, the person was a 41-year-old man with HIV. The
parasite, the CDC says, was Hymenolepis nana — the most common
tapeworm found in humans.

The story, as told by the scientists in a study published in the
New England Journal of Medicine this month, goes like this;

Doctors in Medellín, Colombia contacted the CDC in 2013 for help
diagnosing "bizarre biopsies" taken from the lungs and lymph
nodes of the HIV-positive patient. His symptoms included
fatigue, fever, cough, and "weight loss of several months’
duration." They also saw tapeworm eggs in his feces.

Tests showed the tumors looked similar to human cancer, but they
were not human.

Doctors were initially stumped.

The rapidly-multiplying cancer cells were smaller than human
cancer cells, and they kept fusing together, which the CDC says
is rare for those found in the human body. Eventually, a
breakthrough occurred, when researchers discovered tapeworm DNA
in one of the man's tumors, meaning "nests" of the non-human
cancer cells had originated in the parasite and entered the man,
where they reproduced.

“The cells were something like a mix between cancer cells and
some kind of parasitic cells,” Dr. Carlos Agudelo, one of the
scientists involved, explained to the health science publication
STAT.

Unfortunately for the man, however, it was too late: he died of
kidney failure three days after the bizarre diagnosis.

“We were amazed when we found this new type of disease –-
tapeworms growing inside a person essentially getting cancer
that spreads to the person, causing tumors,” Atis Muehlenbachs,
a staff pathologist in the CDC’s Infectious Diseases Pathology
Branch, who co-authored the study, said in a CDC press release.

“We think this type of event is rare," he said in a phrase worth
repeating out loud.

"However, this tapeworm is found worldwide and millions of
people globally suffer from conditions like HIV that weaken
their immune system. So there may be more cases that are
unrecognized. It’s definitely an area that deserves more study.”

An estimated 75 million people are tapeworm carriers, according
to the study. Up to 25% of all children in some areas may have
the parasite. Most people don't even know they are infected with
a tapeworm, which they become infected with by eating food
contaminated with feces.

While the odds that you've got a tapeworm living in your gut are
therefore relatively high, the scientists say it was the man's
immune-system-suppressing HIV that ultimately allowed the
tapeworm's cancer to flourish.

That does not mean, though, that HIV patients are at risk of
tapeworm-induced cancer. Instead, it means this is an area for
future study.

"Human disease caused by parasite-derived cancer cells is a
novel finding," the authors wrote, while calling for a "deeper
exploration" of the relationships between infection and cancer.

http://mashable.com/2015/11/05/tapeworm-cancer/#6BtcvZQBRSqx