Six-inch leech found in man's neck during investigation on sore throat

12 March 2024 , 13:10

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Hospital medics were left stunned when they found the blood sucking leech feeding on a man's throat

Doctors were left stunned after a patient who came in complaining of a sore throat was found to have a huge blood sucking leech living inside his throat.

The stomach-churning discovery was made at a hospital in Vietnam where the man was found to have the parasite lodged inside his airway, feeding on his blood.

Local reports say the 53-year-old man complained to doctors of having a hoarse voice and a large, painful lump in his throat which was pulsating.

A doctor gave him a medical exam and discovered the source of the man’s discomfort when he found a six-centimetre long leech jammed tight in his throat passageway.

After questioning the poor patient, stunned medics found that the creature had been living there for more than a month.

Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him

The blood sucking parasite lived inside the man's throat for weeks before he eventually found medical help (Getty Images)

The man told hospital staff that the problems had all started four weeks ago when he had cut his hand while working on a rat trap. He then picked up a handful of grass and chewed it up, before using the wad to cover his wound and stop the bleeding.

However as the weeks passed he said he began to feel a lump developing in his throat along with a burning pain. As the symptoms progressed he said he had the alarming sensation of an animal moving about inside his throat.

Eventually he looked in the mirror and to his horror saw a dark brown object in his neck that was slowly pulsating. Shortly after he became hoarse and started coughing up fluid mixed with blood, he told doctors.

Finally he made the decision to seek medical help and took himself along to the Central Endocrine Hospital for a professional examination.

On February 28, M.D. Ha Manh Hung, Deputy Head of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Maxillofacial - Eye, shared the hospital’s horrifying findings - that the man had a leech living inside of his airway.

Doctors gave the man an endoscopy, and found a “foreign object” firmly attached below the glottis (the middle part of the larynx where the vocal cords are located) near his windpipe. The patient was anaesthetised, then the team removed the foreign object only to find it was large living leech.

When leeches first enter the body, they are usually very small in size, Dr Hung explained. But once they find a source of blood they grow and swell quickly, causing serious danger to life. They can enter the body from unsafe water sources, leaves, and wild vegetables in streams, he warned.

Chris Murphy