Mebendazole and alveolar hydatid disease

Five patients with far-advanced, non-resectable Echinococcus multilocularis infection have received high-dose mebendazole therapy for six years. The growth of progressively enlarging primary hepatic lesions (three cases) and thoracic metastases (two cases) has been arrested with regression of lesions in each case. On two occasions, tissues of the larval cestode from a patient who had received long-term mebendazole therapy failed to develop viable vesicles after animal inoculation. Survival time has been almost certainly prolonged. The favourable results seen in this clinical trial are attributable to mebendazole therapy.