Immunological and histopathological reactions of the rat against the tapeworm Hymenolepis diminuta and the effects of anti-thymocyte serum.

Anti-thymocyte-serum (ATS) treated Wistar rats infected with 100 cysticercoids of the rat intestinal cestode Hymenolepis diminuta showed a delayed destrobilation and expulsion of the worms compared with saline-treated infected rats. This result strengthens previous evidence of an immunological nature of the destrobilation and expulsion in lumen-dwelling cestodes--even in their most susceptible hosts. The migration of the worms in the small intestine during the first 20 days of a primary 100-worm infection is described and the anterior migration of the destrobilated worms to the first 10% of the pylorus is emphasized and compared with similar migrations of the nematode Nippostrongylus brasiliensis in the rat. No serum antibodies were detected using passive cutaneous anaphylaxis and the indirect immunofluorescence test, although the thymus-independent areas of the mesenteric lymph nodes showed an increase in pyroninophilic cells. In the small intestine, no response to the tapeworm infection could be detected in pyroninophilic cells and globule leucocytes, but mast cell and eosinophilic cell numbers were increased in the saline-treated infected rats. Although the host responses to H. diminuta are shown to be thymus-dependent, the possibility of thymus-independent activity in the host reactions cannot be ruled out.