Doctors found a live python parasite in a woman’s brain
The worm, Ophidascaris robertsi, is not the only type of worm that can infect human brains
![A photo of a living brain worm in a specimen jar.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/090723_MR_brain-worm_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
A neurosurgeon pulled this living worm from an Australian woman’s brain. It was a python parasite that had never before been found in people.
Canberra Health Services
By Meghan Rosen
The woman’s mysterious symptoms started in her stomach.
Weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhea led to night sweats and a dry cough. Then, doctors found lesions on her lungs, liver and spleen. An infection, perhaps. But tests for bacteria, fungi, a human parasite and even autoimmune disease all came up negative.
Three weeks later, the woman was in the hospital with a fever and cough. CT scans revealed a clue that was telling, in retrospect: Some of her lung lesions appeared to be migrating. A second clue came months later, when the woman became forgetful and depressed. “She had a very astute GP who thought, ‘Something’s not right here, I better do an MRI of the brain,’” says Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease physician at the Australian National University and the Canberra Hospital.
That brain scan turned up a ghostly glow in her frontal lobe. It could have been cancer, an abscess or another affliction, Senanayake says. “No one thought it was going to be a worm.”
![An MRI image showing a light gray region of a person's brain.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/090723_MR_brain-worm_inline-1.jpg?resize=451%2C450&ssl=1)
During a biopsy of the woman’s brain, her neurosurgeon spotted a suspicious stringlike structure and plucked it out with forceps. It was pinkish-red, about half the length of a pencil — and still alive.
“It was definitely one of those ‘wow’ moments,” Senanayake says. “A worm in the brain!” But the doctors also felt relieved. It meant they had a diagnosis, he says. The team finally would know how to treat its patient.