A doctor was performing a biopsy through a hole in a patient’s skull when he used tweezers to extract the parasite.
A neurosurgeon investigates the mysterious symptoms of a woman in a hospital in Milan Australia says he removed a live worm from the patient’s brain.
Surgeon Hari Priya Bandi was biopsying through a hole in the skull of a 64-year-old patient at Canberra hospital when she used tweezers to remove the parasite, which measured 8cm.
“I thought, ‘What is this? It doesn’t make sense. But it’s alive and moving,'” Bandi told the Associated Press. “He kept moving vigorously. We were all feeling very nauseous,” he added.
The creature was the larva of a native Australian nematode that was never known to be a human parasite, called Ofidascaris Robertsi. Worms are commonly found in python snakes.
Bandi and Canberra-based infectious disease specialist Sanjaya Senanayake co-authored a paper on the remarkable case. The article was published in the latest issue of the magazine Emerging infectious diseases.
Senanayake said he was on duty at the hospital in June last year when the worm was found. “I got a call saying, ‘We have a patient with an infection problem. We just removed a live worm from this patient’s brain,'” he said.
The woman had been hospitalized after experiencing severe forgetfulness and worsening depression over the course of three months. The scans showed changes in her brain.
A year earlier, she had been admitted to a local hospital in southeastern New South Wales with symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhoea, dry cough and night sweats.
Senanayake said the brain biopsy should have revealed cancer or an abscess. “This patient was being treated for a mysterious disease that we thought was an immune condition because we hadn’t been able to find a parasite before,” Senanayake said. “Then, out of nowhere, a large lump appeared in the front of his brain.”
“Suddenly, with tweezers (from notices), was pulling out something wriggling. She and everyone in the OR were absolutely stunned,” added Senanayake.
Bandi said his patient regained consciousness after the worm was extracted, with no ill consequences. “She was so grateful to have an answer to what had been causing her problems for so long,” Bandi said.
Six months after the worm was removed, the patient’s neuropsychiatric symptoms had improved but persisted, the journal article reads.
The patient was sent home shortly after surgery on antiparasitic drugs and has not returned to the hospital since, Senanayake said. “She’s fine, but because it’s a new infection, we’re keeping a close eye on her,” Senanayake told Ten Network television.
Worm eggs are commonly shed in snake droppings which contaminate grass eaten by small mammals. The life cycle continues as other snakes eat the mammals.
The woman lives near a python habitat and uses the native vegetation for cooking. Although she has not had any direct contact with snakes, scientists speculate that she consumed the eggs from contaminated vegetation or hands. /ap
Source: Terra
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