Jun 27, 2026 05:52 PM
Parasites are only one of the many benefits of global travel and migration, in addition to the reintroduction of bedbegs and spread of exotic diseases.
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Doctors suspected man had brain cancer. He actually had worms.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/06/d...had-worms/
EXCERPTS: A 60-year-old man in Spain went to the doctor complaining of a headache that he couldn’t shake. It had started two weeks prior and was only getting worse. He also said he had noticed subtle changes in his behavior.
[...] In a case report in Emerging Infectious Diseases, the doctors reported working through the possible conditions that could explain all the findings. They noted that the man was not immunocompromised and had never traveled internationally. Their top suspicion was metastatic cancer.
[...] The doctors did another brain scan, this time with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to get a better look at the lesions. With the more detailed imaging, they saw clearly that the lesions weren’t tumors; they were encapsulated tapeworm larvae. On the MRI, the doctors could see the worms’ heads, called scolexes.
The finding surprised the doctors since tapeworms aren’t endemic to Spain and he said he hadn’t traveled. However, the man may have been exposed during his work. Until 10-years prior, when he retired, he had worked in construction, often working alongside people who had migrated from regions where pork tapeworms (Taenia solium) are endemic. The parasitic worms can spread through the fecal-oral route. His doctors speculated his infection might have been a rare case of cryptic transmission from sharing meals and bathrooms with his coworkers, one of whom apparently had a tapeworm infection.
[...] When cysticerci enter a person’s central nervous system, it’s a disease called neurocysticercosis (NCC), which is the diagnosis the doctors in Spain gave the man. Testing after his MRI revealed his immune system had made antibodies against Taenia solium, confirming the infection.
NCC can be serious, causing seizures, significant neurological deficits, cognitive decline, stroke, and other problems. But it can also be asymptomatic. The severity depends on where in the brain the worms settle. Luckily for the man, the effects were relatively mild. Doctors prescribed him two anti-parasitic drugs, and he recovered.
“Our case emphasizes that the absence of travel history should not preclude NCC from the differential diagnosis of multiple ring-enhancing brain lesions, even in regions where metastatic cancer is statistically much more likely,” they concluded. If they had caught onto the worms sooner, it would have prevented “unnecessary invasive oncologic procedures and lead to prompt, targeted antiparasitic therapy.” MORE - missing details)
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Doctors suspected man had brain cancer. He actually had worms.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/06/d...had-worms/
EXCERPTS: A 60-year-old man in Spain went to the doctor complaining of a headache that he couldn’t shake. It had started two weeks prior and was only getting worse. He also said he had noticed subtle changes in his behavior.
[...] In a case report in Emerging Infectious Diseases, the doctors reported working through the possible conditions that could explain all the findings. They noted that the man was not immunocompromised and had never traveled internationally. Their top suspicion was metastatic cancer.
[...] The doctors did another brain scan, this time with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to get a better look at the lesions. With the more detailed imaging, they saw clearly that the lesions weren’t tumors; they were encapsulated tapeworm larvae. On the MRI, the doctors could see the worms’ heads, called scolexes.
The finding surprised the doctors since tapeworms aren’t endemic to Spain and he said he hadn’t traveled. However, the man may have been exposed during his work. Until 10-years prior, when he retired, he had worked in construction, often working alongside people who had migrated from regions where pork tapeworms (Taenia solium) are endemic. The parasitic worms can spread through the fecal-oral route. His doctors speculated his infection might have been a rare case of cryptic transmission from sharing meals and bathrooms with his coworkers, one of whom apparently had a tapeworm infection.
[...] When cysticerci enter a person’s central nervous system, it’s a disease called neurocysticercosis (NCC), which is the diagnosis the doctors in Spain gave the man. Testing after his MRI revealed his immune system had made antibodies against Taenia solium, confirming the infection.
NCC can be serious, causing seizures, significant neurological deficits, cognitive decline, stroke, and other problems. But it can also be asymptomatic. The severity depends on where in the brain the worms settle. Luckily for the man, the effects were relatively mild. Doctors prescribed him two anti-parasitic drugs, and he recovered.
“Our case emphasizes that the absence of travel history should not preclude NCC from the differential diagnosis of multiple ring-enhancing brain lesions, even in regions where metastatic cancer is statistically much more likely,” they concluded. If they had caught onto the worms sooner, it would have prevented “unnecessary invasive oncologic procedures and lead to prompt, targeted antiparasitic therapy.” MORE - missing details)