For months, a 50-year-old woman in Afghanistan took anti-seizure drugs to stop her repeated fainting spells. They did not work because her brain was not the problem. Tucked inside the wall of her heart was a parasitic cyst nearly 4 centimeters across, obstructing blood flow out of the right side of her heart.
Doctors at Ariana Medical Complex in Kabul, led by a cardiologist from Kabul University of Medical Sciences, described the case in European Heart Journal: Case Reports, published July 30, 2026. The cause was cystic echinococcosis, also called hydatid disease, a tapeworm infection that usually targets the liver or lungs, not the heart.
