Doctors In China Removed A 3cm Long Leech From Woman’s Throat
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A woman in China went to a local hospital after she had a sore throat. But after some examinations, the woman and the doctors at the hospital were shocked when they saw a 3cm long live leech inside her throat.
Ms. Wang, the woman who had a sore throat, visited the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital when she had discomfort in her throat and added that she had been coughing up blood.
Dr. Yao Hongmei, the head of the respiratory and critical care medicine at the hospital, asked Ms. Wang, who is 65-years-old, to undergo a bronchoscopy.
Ms. Wang went to the hospital on July 2 and this is when the doctors found out that there was a live leech living inside her throat.
When the doctors placed a small camera into the throat of Ms. Wang, they saw the live leech wriggling in her glottis.
The live leech was removed by a team of medical experts. The doctors had to freeze the live leech with dry ice before they could peel it off her throat.
Dr. Yao Hongmei said that this is not the first time this has happened.
The doctor said, “In similar cases involving leeches in the past, doctors extracted the parasites by freezing them. Leeches go into hibernation at low temperatures, so I sprayed a carbon dioxide freezing agent on it, lowering part of its body to minus 80C. It froze, and then its suckers to release from the patient’s trachea wall, allowing me to remove it.”
Ren Xuejiao, a nurse who helped treat Ms. Wang at the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital, said that if they removed the parasite with force, they could have injured the throat of Ms. Wang and could have required her to undergo a surgery.
Dr. Yao added that it only took them 6 minutes to remove the live leech.
The doctors said that the woman might have drunk unsterilized water which contained eggs of leeches which hatched and grew in her throat.