A 3-year-old boy in Southwest China developed unexplained masses beneath his skin, and the clue that cracked the case came from a slide of his blood. His eosinophils, a type of white blood cell that helps fight parasites, looked degranulated, a change that pointed toward a parasitic fluke better known for settling in the lungs.
The boy was diagnosed with ectopic paragonimiasis, an infection caused by Paragonimus flukes that turn up outside their usual target organ. The case was published July 13, 2026, in Acta Parasitologica by a team from the laboratory medicine departments of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture People's Hospital in Yunnan Province and Shanxi Bethune Hospital in Taiyuan.
