A parasite best known for damaging the intestines, liver, and bladder has surfaced somewhere far less expected: the brain. Two physicians at Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila, Mary-France G. Lebii and Bonifacio C. Pedregosa II, documented a case of cerebral schistosomiasis in a New England Journal of Medicine image report published in September.
Schistosomiasis is caused by parasitic flatworms picked up from contaminated freshwater. In most people, the damage centers on the gut, liver, or urinary tract. But the worms' eggs can travel through the bloodstream and lodge in the brain or spinal cord, where they trigger inflammation and form lesions that can resemble other brain diseases on a scan.
