In the middle of an operation, surgeons who thought they were removing a brain tumor came across something unheard of.
Surgeons expecting to remove a brain tumor stumbled upon something never seen before. The operated patient, Rachel Palma, had consulted for persistent general malaise, with numbness on the right side of the body, mental confusion and violent nightmares. Young and healthy, none of his medical history could explain his symptoms. Perplexed, the doctors gave him an MRI, revealing a probable brain tumor in the left frontal part of the brain.
A small quail egg
“From the images and his history, we thought we saw what appeared to be a brain tumor,” said Jonathan Rasouli, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, who was responsible for the operation. “She had no infections or cancerous tumors elsewhere in her body.”
The doctors then perform a craniotomy to remove the tumor, but fall… on a small egg. “When we arrived at the level of the lesion, we quickly realized that what we were observing was clearly not a brain tumor”, continues Jonathan Rasouli. “It actually looked more like a quail egg – same size, same texture. It was very strange, because you don’t really expect to see something like that in someone’s brain.”
Once the egg was removed, scientists dissected it and found that it was actually a baby tapeworm. Rachel Palma suffered from neurocysticercosis, a parasitic infection of the central nervous system caused by a flatworm, the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium).
Neurocysticercosis
Neurocysticercosis, commonly seen as an “underestimated tropical disease”, affects poor populations living in unhygienic and rural environments. It is mainly present in Asia, Latin America and increasingly in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, due to increased traffic flows around the world, people living in developed countries sometimes fall ill. “In the United States, in recent decades, neurocysticercosis has become an important public health problem due to the increasing influx of emigrants, particularly from Mexico”, explains the René Labusquière Center, Institute of Tropical Medicine.
Typically, people become infected by consuming raw or undercooked meat or drinking water contaminated with T. solium eggs, explains World Health Organization (WHO) website. And because infected people most often live in extremely poor and remote areas, they may be sick for years without knowing it. However, without treatment, the condition becomes more and more serious as the larvae invade the tissues.
“The encystment of the larvae in the central nervous system, muscles, skin and eyes leads to neurocysticercosis the most serious form of the disease which is one of the frequent causes of epilepsy in the world”, explains the WHO. In addition to seizures, partial or generalized, the patient most often suffers from headaches, dementia, visual disturbances, dizziness, mental disorders, intracranial hypertension (nausea, vomiting, etc.) or even tremors.
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