Abstract
Members of the genus Dicrocoelium are cosmopolitan hermaphroditic trematodes, which commonly occur in the biliary system of ruminants, especially cattle and sheep. There are two intermediate hosts (land snails and ants) involved in the parasite life cycle, and the final host becomes infected after ingestion of the larvae containing ant. Light infections are generally symptomless; therefore, the disease is often get underestimated by practitioners and researchers. In humans, Dicrocoelium causes a rare food-borne zoonotic disease of the biliary tract. In this chapter, we summarize the current knowledge on different aspects of Dicrocoelium and dicrocoeliosis/dicrocoeliasis, including biology, clinical presentations, pathogenesis, and diagnosis with special emphasis on the current and ancient epidemiology of this fascinating worm in Iran, covering 15 human cases from the Bronze Age to very 2022.
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Sazmand, A., Nourian, A., Nezamabadi, M. (2023). Dicrocoelium in Iran: From Bronze Age to the Twenty-First Century. In: Mehlhorn, H., Wu, X., Wu, Z. (eds) Infectious Diseases along the Silk Roads. Parasitology Research Monographs, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35275-1_10
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