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Live parasitic worm extracted from a woman's brain in Australia

“I used tumor-holding forceps and lifted out something that I definitely was not expecting: a linear, squiggling line,” Bandi said on Tuesday.

Scientists this week published information on an unprecedented case in Australia, where they found and extracted a live parasitic worm from the brain of a woman in Canberra. The worm was some 8 centimeters long and is a roundworm most commonly seen in python species.

The Ophidascaris robertsi was found in the brain of a 64-year-old woman after she had complained of a variety of changing symptoms and afflictions over a prolonged period.

Neurosurgeon Hari Priya Bandi and a team of specialists found and removed the parasite with forceps during a biopsy. 

“I used tumor-holding forceps and lifted out something that I definitely was not expecting: a linear, squiggling line,” Bandi said on Tuesday.

“And my junior doctor said, 'is that an artery?', because that's what it looked like. And I said, 'it's not an artery, we're nowhere near any artery!' And I noticed it was moving and I went, 'just get it out of my forceps!' So we rapidly put it in a pathology pot, and it was a vigorously wriggling worm.”

Asked whether it was fair to assume the worm had been moving around inside, Bandi said it was and that their scans demonstrated as much. 

The woman's symptoms had started as lung, liver and abdominal problems, Bandi said, but evolved towards problems like depression, presumably as the animal's activities kept affecting different parts of the brain. 

Her psychiatrist had conducted CT scans in which what was later identified as the worm was first visible, and later MRI scans to prepare for the procedure had then shown how the abnormality was moving.   

“When you operate on someone's brain and you take a biopsy or something, you never expect to encounter something living,” Doctor Sanjaya Senanayake, who co-authored the study with Bandi, added. “[It] was certainly something we'll never forget.” 

The paper on the case was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal on Monday. 

Bandi and Senanayake speculated that the woman might have been exposed to the parasite when foraging for wild grasses to make a dish similar to spinach, when she might have been exposed to python feces. 

The worm was successfully removed last year. The woman, whom Senanayake praised as being “very courageous and patient,” returned to normal life after the operation to remove the parasite, but medical professionals have continued to monitor her. 

“Obviously, because this was an unusual case at so many levels, we're keeping a close eye on her and keeping in touch,” Senanayake said. 

Senanayake said the discovery came as a surprise, but that they were aware of the possibility, particularly as human and animal habitats continue to overlap more and more. 

“Other snakes around the world carry this parasite, so it is quite likely that other new cases will be documented,” he said. “So hopefully, raising awareness of that will help other healthcare workers around the world.”