A 56-year-old man from Tahiti had lived for several years with a firm, painless swelling on the left side of his scrotum. By the time he sought care in mainland France, it measured 18 centimeters, roughly 7 inches. When surgeons operated, they found remnants of a filarial worm and widespread dead tissue inside the fluid-filled mass.
The diagnosis was lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease. The case appears in IJID Regions, published online June 18 and included in the journal's September 2026 volume. The authors, from Nancy Regional University Hospital Center in France and Université Laval in Quebec, describe the case as rare for French Polynesia because of the swelling's size.
