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Woman's brain worm infection confirmed after eggs grow tails in lab test
Ars Technica • • health
Key Points:
- A Filipino rice farmer experienced sudden uncontrollable shaking in her right arm and leg, leading to a hospital visit where MRI revealed nodules in her left frontal lobe suspected to be worm eggs.
- Doctors diagnosed her with neuroschistosomiasis, a rare complication from infection by the Schistosoma japonicum blood fluke, common in the Philippines and parts of Asia.
- The parasite's life cycle involves eggs hatching in water, infecting snails, then releasing larvae that penetrate human skin and mature in blood vessels, with eggs causing inflammation and organ damage.
- In rare cases, eggs reach the brain, causing neurological symptoms like seizures; diagnosis was confirmed through the circumoval precipitin test and stool egg count.
- Treatment with anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-seizure medications resolved her symptoms, and follow-up MRI showed the eggs had disappeared.
