Woman has 8cm-worm removed from brain that had lived there for years

A 61-year-old woman had an 8cm live worm removed from her brain after years of worsening numbness, chills and convulsions, with doctors suspecting it may be linked to a frog-leg folk remedy

An 8cm-long live worm was removed from the brain of a 61-year-old woman after she had suffered years of baffling symptoms. Doctors said the woman’s health problems had gradually worsened and were difficult to explain.

The patient reportedly underwent brain surgery at a hospital in Guangdong province, in China, in early April. Doctors said the parasite may be linked to something that happened when she was younger.

She said that as a teenager, her mother caught a wild frog and pushed the animal’s leg into her tooth cavity in an attempt to treat toothache. A piece of local folklore held that a frog’s leg could “fish out tooth worms”.

The woman later said she often drank untreated mountain spring water and even tried snake wine as a supposed remedy, according to the Shenzhen Evening News. In 2021, she had surgery on her lumbar vertebrae.

Afterwards, she began experiencing numbness in her arms, legs and scalp, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. Last summer, despite high temperatures, she felt intensely cold.

She also suffered frequent convulsions towards the end of last year, as per SCMP. Doctors initially struggled to pinpoint the cause until a neurologist spotted a tunnel-like track in her brain, believed to have been left by a parasite moving through tissue.

The woman’s husband consequently told the media: “Finally we found what caused her health problems. The surgery went smoothly and her condition improved a lot.”

The 8cm worm removed from the woman’s brain is thought likely to have been a Spirometra tapeworm larva. Infection with this parasite can cause a rare condition known as sparganosis, when the larval form (called a sparganum) migrates through the body and can lodge in organs including the brain, the MSD Manuals explain.

Doctors say these parasites do not normally live in humans and typically end up there by accident, when their natural life cycle is disrupted. In cases like this, the larva can spend years moving through tissues before settling in one area, which is why symptoms may take a long time to become obvious and can be difficult to diagnose.

There are three main routes by which people can contract Spirometra larvae. One is drinking untreated water contaminated with tiny infected crustaceans (copepods).

Another is eating raw or undercooked meat from “intermediate hosts” such as frogs or snakes.

A third, well-documented risk is folk remedies involving raw animal flesh applied to an open wound or body cavity, because live larvae can potentially pass directly from the animal’s muscle into human tissue.

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