A 10cm parasitic tapeworm lived in a man's BRAIN for four years before doctors realised it was there, it has been revealed.
The
50-year-old man, who has not been named, visited doctors in 2008
suffering from headaches, seizures, memory loss and complaining about
his sense of smell.
Specialists were stumped when an MRI scan showed a bunch of what appeared to be lesions that kept moving.
Scans over the next four years showed it had moved by at least 5cm through brain tissue.
Doctors
at St Thomas’ Hospital in London tested the man for a string of
diseases included HIV, lime disease, syphilis as his condition continued
to puzzle the experts.
But in 2012 medics found the remains of a
"10 cm ribbon-shaped larval worm". The man was then given drugs to kill
the parasite and has made a complete recovery, reports the Genome
Biology journal.
Once diagnosed the man, who is of Chinese origin
but lives in East Anglia, was treated easily with drugs to kill the
worm and has now completely recovered.
the tapeworm was a Spirometra erinaceieuropaei
– a worm that infects domestic animals and humans. There have been just
300 reported cases worldwide since 1953 and it has never been seen
before in the UK.
It causes inflammation of the body’s tissues and in the brain can lead to seizures, memory loss and headaches.
Experts
say people may be infected by accidentally swallowing infected
crustaceans from lakes or eating raw meat from reptiles and amphibians.
“We
did not expect to see an infection of this kind in the UK, but global
travel means that unfamiliar parasites do sometimes appear,” says Dr
Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas, study author from the Department of
Infectious Disease, Addenbrooke’s NHS
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