An Australian neurosurgeon recently said she pulled a “live” and “wriggling” worm from a female patient’s brain in June 2022, marking a world first.
Dr. Hari Priya Bandi pulled a roughly three-inch-long worm out of the 64-year-old woman’s brain while conducting a biopsy in June 2022, the BBC reported Tuesday. The woman had allegedly suffered from stomachaches, coughing and night sweats for several months leading up to the biopsy, in addition to being depressed and forgetful.
In January 2021, a hospital scan revealed there was an “atypical lesion within the right frontal lobe of the [64-year-old woman’s] brain,” the BBC reported. Bandi said she didn’t know the worm was there prior to the woman’s surgery, but that she “was able to really feel something” as she performed the brain procedure. She eventually took her tweezers and “pulled [the worm] out.”
“It continued to move with vigor. We all felt a bit sick,” Bandi told local media of the extrication, according to CBS News.
“I thought, ‘Gosh! What is that? It’s moving!” she continued.
A live, wriggling worm found in a woman’s brain in Australia last year in a world-first phenomenon was described by infectious diseases physician Dr. Sanjaya Senanayake as something he ‘never expected’ https://t.co/wQyiF9roRu pic.twitter.com/7Kfoum9kLw
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 29, 2023
“I thought, gosh, that feels funny, you couldn’t see anything more abnormal,” Bandi added. (RELATED: Mom Gets Refund After Finding Live Worm In Her Baby Formula)
Bandi said she contacted her colleague, infectious disease expert Sanjaya Senanayake, noting that aside from “the yuck factor,” the worm was a “new infection” that had never been documented in a human being before, according to the BBC.
“Everyone [in] that operating theatre got the shock of their life when [the surgeon] took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm,” Senanayake said.