When you can see worms moving under someone’s skin, that’s a job for the miracle antiparasitic.
It’s fair to say that a career in medicine is not for the squeamish – it takes something a bit special to make doctors shift uncomfortably in their seats.
But courtesy of the New England Journal of Medicine, the Back Page reckons the following case study has sufficient “yuck” factor to make even hardened medicos squirm.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the story involves worms. In this case, a roundworm infection so severe that doctors could actually see larvae travelling about under the skin of a 64-year-old Spanish man.
Here’s the pictures.
The reason the infection looks like a poorly executed tattoo is because doctors drew outlines of the Strongyloides stercoralis nematode’s larvae on the man’s skin to demonstrate how the critters were moving around over a 24-hour period.
The patient, who worked in a sewage plant, developed the roundworm condition while in hospital after taking a high dose of immunosuppressive glucocorticoids for a cancerous growth that was pressing on his spinal cord.
While the imagery is certainly confronting, the patient reported only itchiness and mild diarrhoea as result of the infection, and the good news is doctors were able to successfully treat the condition.
Turns out that ivermectin worked just fine on the roundworms.
If you see something that makes your skin crawl, don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with penny@medicalrepublic.com.au
