{"id":67496,"date":"2014-11-22T11:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T11:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=67496"},"modified":"2014-11-22T11:53:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T11:53:00","slug":"doctors-find-tapeworm-living-mans-brain-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/11\/doctors-find-tapeworm-living-mans-brain-four-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors find tapeworm living in man’s brain for four years"},"content":{"rendered":"
A 10cm parasitic tapeworm lived in a man’s brain for four years before doctors realised it was there, it has been revealed.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Specialists were stumped when an MRI scan showed a bunch of what appeared to be lesions that kept moving.<\/p>\n
Scans over the next four years showed it had moved by at least 5cm through brain tissue.<\/p>\n
Doctors at St Thomas\u2019 Hospital in London tested the man for a string of diseases included HIV, lime disease, syphilis as his condition continued to puzzle the experts.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n