The red worm was alive and wriggling as doctors pulled it out of the woman's brain.
A woman in Australia has become the first known person in the world to be infected with a parasitic worm that normally lives in pythons — after doctors found it wriggling in her brain.
She was put on immune-suppressing drugs for this rare blood disorder, but in 2022 she was hospitalized again after developing forgetfulness and worsening depression for three months. Doctors then took a brain scan and found injured tissue in the front right side of her brain. "Neurosurgeons regularly deal with infections in the brain, but this was a once-in-a-career finding," Dr. Sanjaya Senanayake, a case report author and associate professor at the Australian National University, told The Guardian."No one was expecting to find that."O. robertsi is a type of parasitic roundworm that is native to Australia. Adult worms live in the eosphagus and stomach of carpet pythons and shed their eggs in the snakes' feces.
"We hypothesized that she inadvertently consumed O. robertsi eggs either directly from the vegetation or indirectly by contamination of her hands or kitchen equipment," the case report authors wrote.
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Neurosurgeon investigating patient's mystery symptoms plucks a worm from woman's brain in AustraliaA neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital has plucked an 8-centimeter (3-inch) wriggling worm from the patient’s brain
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Neurosurgeon investigating patient's mystery symptoms plucks a worm from woman's brain in AustraliaA neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital has plucked an 8-centimeter (3-inch) wriggling worm from the patient’s brain.
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