Retired's Brain Destroyed By Flowerpot Amoeba

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Video: Retired's Brain Destroyed By Flowerpot Amoeba

Video: Retired's Brain Destroyed By Flowerpot Amoeba
Video: 16-Year-Old Becomes Fourth Known Person to Survive Brain Amoeba in 50 Years | ABC News 2024, March
Retired's Brain Destroyed By Flowerpot Amoeba
Retired's Brain Destroyed By Flowerpot Amoeba
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For two weeks the man felt incomprehensible ailments, and then after hospitalization his condition worsened and he died. It turned out that an amoeba, which is found in the soil, entered his brain and destroyed it

A senior citizen's brain was destroyed by a flowerpot amoeba - amoeba, brain, infection, contamination, medicine
A senior citizen's brain was destroyed by a flowerpot amoeba - amoeba, brain, infection, contamination, medicine

The 82-year-old American retiree loved to tinker with potted houseplants and didn't seem to care much about washing his hands thoroughly after touching the ground.

Two weeks later, after a strange illness, the man was finally taken to the hospital, where the right side of his body began to fail the very next day. He underwent a head scan and was also found to have an "altered mental status."

The patient's mental abilities continued to deteriorate in the following days and the patient died 9 days after hospitalization. Postmortem examination of his brain revealed extensive free-living amoeba infection and "fluid necrosis" of the affected brain tissue.

Scanning the patient's brain immediately after hospitalization (A) and a few days later (B). Below is the patient's brain with affected tissues (C), affected tissues with amoeba under a microscope (D)

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This case was described by researchers at Emory University (Atlanta) in the New England Journal of Medicine.

During treatment, the patient was given medications as for bacterial, viral or fungal meningitis, but they did not help, the man became more and more lethargic and sleepy. There were suspicions of cancer, but the examination did not reveal any malignant cells.

Free-living amoeba are the simplest species Naegleria, Acanthamoeba, Balamuthia and Sappinia that live in water or soil. They do not need a "host", that is, they are not parasites, but if they enter the human body, they can cause deadly destruction.

At the same time, due to the very rare cases of infection with such amoebas, there is no single, proven and research-based effective method for treating such infections.

Most cases are not detected until postmortem autopsy due to the lack of reliable diagnostic texts, and symptoms of free-living amoeba infection can be easily confused with symptoms of other diseases: fever, altered mental consciousness, nausea, vomiting, headaches.

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