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The Spread of Alveolar EchinococcosisAlveolar echinococcosis is caused by the development in humans of the larval stage of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis. Alveolar echinococcosis remains a rare disease. However, the number of cases recorded in the national registry of human cases has increased over the past 7 years, with an average of 28 new cases per year during the 2007–2014 period versus an average of 14 new cases per year during the 1982–2006 period. Furthermore, although it is a parasitic disease, it exhibits all the characteristics of cancer due to its invasive clinical course, its metastatic potential, and the lack of consistently curative drug treatments.In its 2014 activity report, the National Reference Center (CNR) for alveolar echinococcosis, housed at the Besançon University Hospital (CHRU), revealed that the number of cases diagnosed in 2014 was 25 new cases, comprising 15 women and 10 men with a median age of 59. For the first time, the highest number of new annual cases was not recorded in Franche-Comté, but in the Rhône-Alpes region (7 cases), followed by Franche-Comté (5 cases), Île-de-France (3 cases), Lorraine (2 cases), Champagne-Ardenne (2 cases), Burgundy (2 cases), Brittany (2 cases), Alsace (1 case), and Poitou-Charentes (1 case). However, if we take into account the new regions established in 2016, Burgundy/Franche-Comté (7 cases) would be tied with Rhône-Alpes/Auvergne (7 cases) and ahead of Alsace-Lorraine/Champagne-Ardenne (5 cases).The parasite’s life cycle successively involves a definitive host—wild carnivores (foxes) or domestic animals (dogs, cats)—an intermediate host (primarily voles), and a free-living phase in the external environment. The worm develops in the intestines of the definitive hosts. The eggs, which constitute the infective stage, are expelled and spread into the environment via feces. Humans become infected by consuming food (berries, dandelions) contaminated by the feces of infected carnivores or through repeated contact with them. Symptoms appear late (3 to 15 years) after infection. Two major trends have been observed since 1970: on the one hand, an expansion of the area of infected foxes from Lorraine, Alsace, and Franche-Comté toward the northwest (Champagne-Ardenne, Picardy) and south (Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne) and westward (Burgundy, Poitou-Charentes, the Paris region, and as far as the Atlantic coast); and second, greater proximity between humans and foxes, which are settling in urban areas.