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Doctors at a hospital in Portugal identified an infestation of carnivorous larvae inside the ear of a 64-year-old man, who was admitted to the health service with pain, itching and bleeding in the ear canal.
According to the professionals, the physical examination showed that “numerous larvae” were blocking the patient’s ear. They also found that a small area of the eardrum had been perforated by the parasites.
In an interview with Newsweek, Catarina Rato, one of the doctors responsible for the case, said that the larvae found in the patient came from the species of fly Cochliomyia hominivorax🇧🇷
Common in tropical and subtropical areas, the species lays its eggs in other organisms, which hatch into larvae that feed on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals. The infection is known as “myiasis”.
Fly larvae Cochliomyia hominivorax are common in tropical and subtropical regions Image: Getty Images/iStock
The man, who had had symptoms for five days, was hospitalized. Doctors at Hospital Pedro Hispano, in the city of Matosinhos, described the case as rare, in an article published on November 24 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Also according to the article, this type of infection can occur anywhere on the body, with a greater possibility of happening in regions such as the mouth, open wounds, scalp and natural orifices such as the ear, nose and genitals. If the larvae are dead or decaying in deep tissue, surgery may be needed to remove them.
After seven days of diagnosis, the man was evaluated, and the presence of larvae was no longer found. It has not been reported whether it will have any sequels.
