Brain-dwelling worm found in patient - no one saw it coming
An Australian woman’s harrowing medical saga sounds too bizarre to be true – doctors shockingly discovered a live, wriggling worm parasite inhabiting her brain. In this world-first case, surgeons in Canberra extracted the 8cm-long roundworm from the 64-year-old patient’s skull. Typically found in pythons, the Ophidascaris robertsi specimen represented an unprecedented instance of this brain parasite infesting a human host. The patient’s journey from common symptoms to this grotesque revelation contains important lessons about emerging health threats. Initially, the woman from southeastern New South Wales experienced relatively routine issues like abdominal pain, diarrhea, coughing, fever and night sweats. But as
May 10, 2024