Live Worm Found in Australian Woman’s Brain in World First
Live Worm Found in Australian Woman’s Brain in World First

Live Worm Found in Australian Woman’s Brain in World First

Live Worm Found in Australian Woman’s Brain in World First

In a world first, scientists say that an 8cm (3in) worm has been found live in the brain of an Australian woman.

The “string-like structure” was pulled from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe during surgery in Canberra last year.

The Ophidascaris Roberts Roundworm is common in Carpet Pythons – non-venomous snakes found across much of Australia.

Scientists say the woman most likely caught the roundworm after collecting a type of native grass, Warringal greens, beside a lake near where she lived.

The woman suffered from what doctors called an “unusual constellation of symptoms” – stomach pain, a cough and night sweats, evolving into increasing forgetfulness and depression.

While writing in the journal emerging infectious diseases, Mehran Hossain, an Australian expert in parasitology, said she suspects the woman used the foraged plants – contaminated by python faces and parasite eggs – for cooking.

The 64-year-old woman had for months suffered symptoms like stomach pain, a cough, and night sweats, which advanced into forgetfulness and depression.

She was admitted to the hospital in late January 2021, and a scan later revealed “an atypical lesion within the right frontal lobe of the brain”.

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However, the cause of her condition was only revealed by Dr Bandi’s knife during a biopsy in June 2022.

The doctors told BBC that the red parasite found in the woman’s brain could have been there for up to two months.

The report added that the woman, who lived near a lake area in south-eastern New South Wales state, is recovering well.

Her case is believed to be the first instance of a larvae invasion and development in the human brain, researchers said in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal which reported the case.

The neurosurgeon who found the worm said she had only started to touch the brain part that had shown up strangely in the scans when she felt the worm.

“I thought, gosh, that feels funny, you couldn’t see anything more abnormal,” said Dr Bandi.

“And then I was able to really feel something, and I took my tweezers and I pulled it out and I thought, ‘Gosh! What is that? It’s moving!”

“Everyone was shocked. And the worm that we found was happily moving, quite vigorously, outside the brain,” she said.

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