A report on three patients with Echinococcus multilocularis: Lessons learned

Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) is the most virulent species of the genus Echinococcus. It causes a highly lethal helminthic disease in humans. The disease may present as hepatic mass mimicking a malignant neoplasm. Due to the vascular and neural invasion, protean clinical manifestations including Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) may be the clinical presentation of this condition. We herein report three cases of Echinococcus multilocularis; the first case presenting as multiple hepatic space-occupying lesions, second as liver mass infiltrating the nerve bundles, and the third as a hepatic mass infiltrating the large vessels including inferior vena cava and right hepatic vein presenting as BCS. EM is a parasite with capabilities of mass-forming effect, neural and vascular invasion. Though cases of BCS have been described, most of these are due to secondary compression and rarely by direct parasitic invasion.