Diagnostic dilemma: a man’s preference for “soft” bacon may have given him a brain bug

Patient: 52-year-old man from the US

Symptoms: Patient reported to the outpatient clinic after noticing changes in typical migraine symptoms. For the past four months, drugs have not been effective in treating migraines and have started to occur more frequently than usual, but once a week, it has become more severe. He also reported worsening pain behind the skull.

What happened next: The doctor took the male vital signs, but that was not normal. They also employed a CT scan of his brain, which revealed numerous cystic-like lesions scattered across both hemispheres. Specifically, these growths appeared in the adiabatic wiring that extends from the white matter of organs and brain cells.

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The patient was immediately admitted to the hospital for neurosurgical consultation. MRI backed up what was seen on CT scans, but it also revealed fluid accumulation around cysts in the male brain.

Diagnosis: Due to suspected possible parasitic infection, the neurosurgery department sent the patient to an infectious disease specialist. One test showed that male blood carried antibodies against Taenia Solium, a tapeworm commonly found in pigs. In males, worm larvae invaded the brain and were embedded in cysts within tissues. When T. solium infects the nervous system in this way, this condition is known as neurocystic disease.

Treatment: Patients were given antiparacic and anti-inflammatory medications while being monitored in the intensive care unit for several weeks and were subsequently seen in an outpatient clinic for infectious patients. “The patient was successfully treated with regression of the lesions and amelioration of headaches,” his doctor wrote in the case report.

What makes the case unique is that humans can infect T. solium when they accidentally consume worm larvae and eggs. For example, eating undercooked pork can expose people when they drink water contaminated with infected pig feces, or touch their faces and food after touching pig poop.

Consuming undercooked pork containing larvae can consume feces that contain oval shapes while consuming feces that cause infections to other tissues, including the brain. The eggs initially migrate into the blood vessels and compartments of the brain due to cerebrospinal fluid, a clear fluid that soaks the brain, causing an inflammatory immune response that breaks down the brain’s protective barrier.

T. solium is endemic to many parts of the world, including various regions in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. In other words, parasite infections spread regularly to those locations. In fact, in these endemic regions, neurocystic disease is a common cause of epilepsy, according to the World Health Organization. Although infections are not endemic to the US, around 2,000 cases are reported in the country each year, and in many cases, T. It is associated with travel to and from places where solium is endemic.

However, for the man, he “rejected a recent trip to the risky area. His only notable travel history is attending a cruise to the Bahamas two years ago,” the report states. (There is minimal data on whether T. Solium exists in the Bahamas.)

When asked further, the man “admitted the habit of eating evil bacon, which was lightly cooked for most of his life,” the report said. The Food and Drug Administration recommends cooking pork to at least 145 degrees (about 63 degrees Celsius), but it can be difficult to check the temperature of the bacon due to the thin cut of meat. However, according to the USDA, if cooked until crisp, it should reach a safe temperature.

Based on the dietary habits of men, his doctor concluded that his “lifetime preference for soft bacon” could sometimes lead to undercooked bacon, leading to taeniasis, a form of the intestinal form of tenasis. From there, doctors speculated that he may have accidentally caused cysticidalis via inappropriate hand washing. In other words, he may have been inadvertently exposed to worm eggs with his own poop.

“Insufficient pork consumption is, as suspected in this case, the theoretical risk factor for self-introduction-mediated neurocystic disease,” the medical team concluded. “It’s historically rare to encounter infected pork in the US and in our case it could have public health consequences.”