A man ate hotpot and got tapeworms in his brain. He had to be dewormed. - The Washington Post
A man ate hotpot and got tapeworms in his brain. He had to be dewormed. - The Washington Post |
| A man ate hotpot and got tapeworms in his brain. He had to be dewormed. - The Washington Post Posted: 27 Nov 2019 06:52 AM PST  Days later, the man started feeling dizzy, having headaches and experiencing epilepsy-like symptoms such as limb twitching and mouth foaming while trying to sleep at night, according to the report. Co-workers witnessed one of Zhu's episodes and dialed for emergency help. He was seen at a hospital where scans and tests showed that he had multiple intracranial calcifications, abnormal deposits of calcium in blood vessels to the brain; and multiple intracranial lesions, according to researchers. Medical staff wanted to examine him further, but he dismissed their concerns because he didn't want to spend more money, according to the report. The symptoms that sent Zhu to the hospital persisted after he left, researchers reported. He became frightened. He spoke with his relatives about seeking medical treatment before deciding on care at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University Medical College. Huang Jianrong, the hospital's chief doctor, consulted Zhu and learned that he had eaten pork and mutton not too long ago, according to the report. The chief physician recommended an MRI, which showed the man to be suffering from multiple brain lesions and tapeworms in the brain, the report stated. The tapeworms were the root of Zhu's symptoms, but he was confused about how his hot pot meal led to a brain invaded by parasites, researchers said. Jianrong explained to Zhu that the meat for the hot pot probably was tainted with larval tapeworms that survived because of the pork and mutton being improperly cooked, according to the report. Zhu admitted to just simmering the meat, explaining that the bottom of the spicy pot was red, which obstructed his ability to see if the meat was thoroughly cooked, researchers wrote. The construction worker fully recovered after doctors dewormed and reduced the pressure on his brain, the report said. Researchers wrote that because the brain has the largest blood circulation, it is often affected by the ingestion and infection of parasites entering the body through contaminated meat or water. The impact, they said, can cause severe brain damage and be fatal. Neurocysticercosis occurs when a person swallows microscopic eggs passed in the feces of a person who has intestinal pork tapeworm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can be prevented by practicing good hygiene such as hand washing and treating people infected with intestinal tapeworm. The parasitic infection mainly affects people who live in subsistence farming communities in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, according to the World Health Organization. In March, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper about an 18-year-old man in India who died of neurocysticercosis after experiencing seizures and confusion. More recently, a 42-year-old New York woman was diagnosed with the same parasitic infection when doctors went in to remove a cancerous tumor from her brain only to find a tapeworm instead. The CDC estimates that there are about 1,000 cases of neurocysticercosis in the United States each year, with most cases being reported in New York, California, Texas, Oregon and Illinois. Read more:  |
| Flesh-eating Tapeworm Removed From Man's Brain After 15 Years of Infection - Newsweek Posted: 05 Nov 2019 12:00 AM PST Doctors have removed a nearly five-inch-long flesh-eating tapeworm from the head of a Chinese man, who became infected 15 years ago. Wang Lei, from the city of Guangzhou in southeast China, underwent a two-hour-long procedure at the Guangdong Sanjiu Brain Hospital during which medical staff took out the parasite, belonging to the species Sparganum mansoni, the Daily Mirror reported. These tapeworms usually live in the intestines of dogs and cats as adults. However, the larvae can be ingested by humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These larvae can cause a parasitic infection known as sparganosis, the symptoms of which can vary depending on where they migrate to in the host's body. The parasite can end up in several places, including the breast, urinary tract, lungs, abdominal organs, central nervous system and subcutaneous tissue—the innermost layer of skin. When the parasite ends up in the subcutaneous tissue, the victim may develop painful nodules. If it finds its way to the ear, the patient can experience vertigo or deafness. But if it reaches the brain or spine, the host can suffer a variety of neurological symptoms, including weakness, headaches, seizures and abnormal skin sensations, such as numbness or tingling. Lei said that he began to feel numbness down his left side in 200. Since then, his health has gradually worsened, to the point where he suffered frequent seizures and blackouts. The man saw several specialists in an attempt to find out what was causing his problems. He was even treated for a suspected malignant brain tumor before doctors eventually discovered a tapeworm living in his head in 2018.  Initially they advised him to undergo a non-surgical form of treatment given that the location of the tapeworm made an operation risky. However, this treatment was not successful and doctors finally decided to operate. "The surgery was risky," Doctor Gu from Sanjiu Brain Hospital told reporters. "The live tapeworm was moving in his brain and we had to remove all of it otherwise the leftover part could grow again." "It is not the only case, our hospital has treated four patients this year," he said. "People should be careful when cooking frogs, snails and snakes that need to be cooked thoroughly. Also, do not drink water in the wild unless it has been boiled." Sparganosis is rare although cases have been reported in Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and the U.S. The majority of cases occur in southeast Asian and East African countries.  |
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