A woman went into surgery expecting to have a brain tumor removed, but what doctors found was something --- alive. Yes, rather than a brain tumor, doctors removed a worm from Rosemary Alvarez' brain.
A brain worm? Is that possible? Well, they do exist, and are apparently becoming more common. A CDC report in 2007 outlined affliction's crossing of the border, so to speak to wind up in South Texas. This report was from Arizona.
The brain worm is in fact the pork tapeworm. It can be spread by eating undercooked pork, but also by not washing properly after using the bathroom (I'm sure you can figure out where the eggs would be passed).
Neurosurgeon Peter Nakaji operated on the woman, and chuckled when he saw that it was just a worm, saying "I'm sure this is a very strange response for the people in the operating room. But because I was so pleased to know that it wasn't going to be something terrible."
This was the sixth such case Nakaji has seen in recent months, raising the specter of more common appearances of a horrific disease.
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