Doctors in China were left baffled after discovering squirming worms inside a 70-year-old man's abdomen. The finding, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was made when the man, with a history of colon cancer, reported to a hospital to undergo a cholangioscopy, a procedure in which doctors insert a camera either through the mouth or the skin to examine the upper abdomen for problems. The doctors found that the 70-year-old harboured a tumour in his intestine. They also discovered five parasitic flatworms wriggling in the man's biliary tract, the network of organs that transports digestive juices from the liver to the small intestine.
According to the study, doctors in China identified the worms as clonorchis sinensis, a species of liver fluke that's found in undercooked fish and shrimp. These parasites are native to East Asia, where raw seafood is commonly consumed. When a person eats fish and shrimp containing an immature version of the parasite, it travels to the bile duct, the gallbladder, or the liver, where it matures into adult worms measuring 15 to 20 millimetres in length and 3 to 4 millimetres in width, the New York Post reported.
The worms in the 70-year-old were discovered when the man went to the hospital to undergo a cholangioscopy. He had been previously diagnosed with a type of cancer that develops in the colon (or large intestine) though the worms are thought to be unrelated.
The doctors successfully extracted the parasite from the man's abdomen. Following this they prescribed the patient a drug for such an infection. The medics also put the 70-year-old on chemotherapy to combat the intestinal cancer.
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Notably, in most cases, the condition is asymptomatic. Patients often don't even know that the parasite is present. However, if left untreated it can lead to complications ranging from bacterial infections to pancreatitis to liver abscesses, the outlet reported.
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