Lump On Woman’s Face Turns Out To Be A Parasite Crawling Under Her Skin

0
A woman in Russia found a lump on her face that turned out to be a parasitic worm crawling under her skin. The lump first appeared under the woman's eye (Panel A), and then moved above her eye (Panel B), before migrating to her upper lip (Panel C). Doctors surgically removed the worm (Panel D). (Image: © The New England Journal of Medicine ©2018)

A 32-year-old woman in Russia noticed a small lump under her left eye. The unusual bump that she noticed after snapping a selfie left her even more alarmed when she saw it move. The woman tracked the mysterious lump through a series of selfies and literally saw it move across her face. The lump migrated above her left eye, five days after she first noticed the lump; 10 days later, it moved to her upper lip. Soon after the lump migrated, she went to an ophthalmologist who also observed superficial movement of the lump. According to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the ophthalmologist observed a “superficial moving oblong nodule at the left upper eyelid” (Kartashev & Simon, 2018).

Turned out, the woman was infected with Dirofilaria repens, a type of parasitic worm. According to a report published about a similar case in 2011, Dirofilaria repens are thread-like worms that typically live in the tissue under the skin and infect foxes, cats, dogs and wild animals (Permi et al., 2011). In other words, humans are accidental hosts and not where the worms want to end up since they typically cannot reproduce inside humans.

Human cases of the infection have been reported in parts of Africa, Asia and Europe; the worms spread by mosquito bites. According to the report, the Russian woman had recently traveled to a rural area outside Moscow, where she was frequently bit by mosquitoes. A professor of medicine at the Rostov State Medical University in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia, Dr. Vladimir Kartashev who treated the patient said that there have been more than 4000 human cases of the infection since 1997, in Ukraine and Russia. Human cases have been on the rise in recent years. According to a study published in 2015, the number of cases of Dirofilaria increased from 8 cases reported in 1997 to 200 cases reported in 2015 (Kartashev et al., 2015).

The parasitic infection in humans usually shows up as lumps beneath the skin. Moreover, sometimes, the lumps caused because of the worms move around. According to another study published in 2014 (Ermakova et al., 2014), more than 200 cases of Dirofilaria repens infection documented over a 17-year period were reported in Russia. 35 percent of the patients reported that they could feel something crawling under their skin.

Sounds horrifying, however, the treatment is relatively simple. Removing the worm surgically can cure the infection. Likewise, the Russian woman made full recovery after the worm was surgically removed.

References

Ermakova, L. A., Nagorny, S. A., Krivorotova, E. Y., Pshenichnaya, N. Y., & Matina, O. N. (2014). Dirofilaria repens in the Russian Federation: current epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment from a federal reference center perspective. International Journal of Infectious Diseases23, 47-52.

Kartashev, V., & Simon, F. (2018). Migrating Dirofilaria repens. New England Journal of Medicine378(25), e35.

Kartashev, V., Tverdokhlebova, T., Korzan, A., Vedenkov, A., Simón, L., González-Miguel, J., … & Simón, F. (2015). Human subcutaneous/ocular dirofilariasis in the Russian Federation and Belarus, 1997–2013. International Journal of Infectious Diseases33, 209-211.

Permi, H. S., Veena, S., Prasad, H. K., Kumar, Y. S., Mohan, R., & Shetty, K. J. (2011). Subcutaneous human dirofilariasis due to Dirofilaria repens: report of two cases. Journal of global infectious diseases3(2), 199.

Previous articleDoctors Find Parasites Lurking In Woman’s Spine
Next articleAnencephaly
Dr. Aiman Shahab is a dentist with a bachelor’s degree from Dow University of Health Sciences. She is an experienced freelance writer with a demonstrated history of working in the health industry. Skilled in general dentistry, she is currently working as an associate dentist at a private dental clinic in Karachi, freelance content writer and as a part time science instructor with Little Medical School. She has also been an ambassador for PDC in the past from the year 2016 – 2018, and her responsibilities included acting as a representative and volunteer for PDC with an intention to make the dental community of Pakistan more connected and to work for benefiting the underprivileged. When she’s not working, you’ll either find her reading or aimlessly walking around for the sake of exploring. Her future plans include getting a master’s degree in maxillofacial and oral surgery, settled in a metropolitan city of North America.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here