4 Echinococcosis/hydatidosis is one of the most important zoonotic diseases inasmuch as it occurs in different

parts of Iran.5 Adult worms have been recovered from dogs, jackals, and wolves, but human cases have been reported from hospital archives by pathological reports of surgically proven cases in different geographical areas of the country.6 In nearly all the previous reports, the liver was the most Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical common location of the hydatid cyst, followed by the lung, with the approximate occurrence rates of 70% and 12%, respectively.7,8 There is a small number of reports of higher incidence rates of lung involvement in Iran, but such cases are very unusual.9,10 The reported incidence in children has been a point of controversy in a few previous investigations, reporting incidence Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical rates of 41-70% for the lung and 43-48% for the liver hydatid cyst.11,12 Although most reported Iranians with

Echinococcosis had cysts in their lungs and livers, more unusual cyst locations were also recorded.9,13 In a few previous reviews on hydatidosis form Iran, unusual body sites such as the heart, orbit, brain, muscle, salivary gland, bone, urinary tract, and pancreas were reported.9 The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the published cases of the hydatid cyst in unusual body sites from Iran to delineate the most important demographic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical findings and locations of the disease in this hyperendemic country. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Methods The published cases of the hydatid cyst in unusual body sites from Iran were reviewed via a search in PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, IranMedex, Scientific Information Database (SID), Magiran, and Irandoc (1990-2011), Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical using the keywords of “hydatid cyst and Iran” and “Echinococcus granulosus and Iran”. The following inclusion criteria were employed: 1) Articles must be written in English and Farsi; 2) Articles must have been published between 1990 and 2011; 3) Studies must be from

Iran and contain case report(s), diagnosing the hydatid cyst in unusual locations (i.e. other than the liver and lung); and 4) Cases must have been pathologically confirmed postoperatively. Results In the last 20 years, about 463 cases of the hydatid cyst located in different parts of the body, excluding the liver and lung, have been published from Iran. Table 1 depicts the details of the published cases. Table 1 The published Carnitine dehydrogenase cases of the hydatid cyst with unusual locations from Iran The most common locations were the central nervous click here system (brain, spinal cord, and orbit), musculoskeletal system, heart, and kidney, whereas some less common locations were the spleen, pancreas, appendix, thyroid, salivary gland, adrenal gland, breast, and ovary. Other cases such as retroperitoneal and mediastinal hydatid cysts were also reported.