Neurosurgeon plucks live worm from woman’s brain in Australia

An AP report on August 29, 2023, says a neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital plucked a wriggling worm from a patient’s brain.

Surgeon Hari Priya Bandi was performing a biopsy through a hole in the 64-year-old patient’s skull at Canberra Hospital last year when she used forceps to pull out the parasite, which measured 8 centimeters, or 3 inches.

“I just thought: ‘What is that? It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s alive and moving,’” Bandi was quoted Tuesday in The Canberra Times newspaper.

“It continued to move with vigor. We all felt a bit sick,” Bandi added of her operating team.

The woman had been admitted to the hospital after experiencing forgetfulness and worsening depression over three months. Scans showed changes in her brain.

A year earlier, she had been admitted to her local hospital in southeast New South Wales state with symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhea, a dry cough and night sweats.

Senanayake who was also on duty said the brain biopsy was expected to reveal a cancer or an abscess.

“This patient had been treated ... for what was a mystery illness that we thought ultimately was a immunological condition because we hadn’t been able to find a parasite before and then out of nowhere, this big lump appeared in the frontal part of her brain,” Senanayake said.

“Suddenly, with her (Bandi’s) forceps, she’s picking up this thing that’s wriggling. She and everyone in that operating theater were absolutely stunned,” Senanayake added.

Bandi said her patient regained conscious after the worm was extracted without any negative consequences.

“She was so grateful to have an answer for what had been causing her trouble for so very long,” Bandi said.

Six months after the worm was removed, the patient’s neuropsychiatric symptoms had improved but persisted, the journal article said.

The patient had been sent home soon after the surgery with antiparasitic drugs and had not returned to hospital since, Senanayake said. “She’s done OK, but obviously because this is a new infection, we’re keeping a close eye on her,” Senanayake told Ten Network television.

The worms’ eggs are commonly shed in snake droppings which contaminate grass eaten by small mammals. The life cycle continues as other snakes eat the mammals.

The woman lives near a carpet python habitat and forages for native vegetation called warrigal greens to cook.

While she had no direct contact with snakes, scientists hypothesize that she consumed the eggs from the vegetation or her contaminated hands.

Incidentally, records show that this is another documented surgery where a live worm gets pulled out from a white woman's brain; the other case had to do with a woman on vacation from the US who unfortunately ingested ascaris egg from a cooked celebratory traditional pig meal with her family.