Condition of Boy With Brain Parasite Improves

The condition of a 10-year-old Sylmar boy who suffered a seizure caused by a parasitic worm in his brain improved Saturday to fair, doctors said.

The boy, Bernardino Gonzalez, was airlifted Friday evening from a park blocks from his Sylmar home after his mother discovered him unconscious in the bathroom and dialed 911.

“He had been eating watermelon, that’s it,” said Felix Gonzalez, the boy’s father. “Then he got in the shower and passed out.”

The boy’s worried parents accompanied him to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.

“He didn’t move until two hours after we got there,” Gonzalez said of his only child. “And then he moved his foot. But he opened his eyes this morning. I was scared, I’m still scared.”

The suspected worm larva is Taenia solium, or pork tapeworm, said Dr. Robin Kallas, an attending physician in the hospital’s emergency room.

“There are two ways to get this infection,” she said. “You can eat the worm’s eggs in undercooked pork or fail to wash your hands properly after touching” something harboring the eggs, such as raw pork or fecal matter.

“If the worm stayed in the intestines [where it first arrives after entering the body], it could live and grow forever,” Kallas said. “It’s really not that uncommon.”

Less common in this country, she said, is the incidence of brain infection caused by the worm.

“It’s extremely common in Mexico and other developing countries,” Kallas said. “In Mexico, it’s the most common cause of seizures for those over age 5.”

Once the worm’s eggs have reached the brain, through the bloodstream, they typically die after no more than six months, she said, or “they can remain dormant in the body, showing no symptoms, for years.”

After the larvae have developed in the brain, the body’s natural defenses hem them in, to isolate them and prevent them from doing further damage. Once the larvae have been isolated, they calcify and causes inflammation in neighboring brain tissue, Kallas said.

“That’s when we see the seizures,” she said.

Because the infection is in Bernardino’s brain, doctors are hesitant to do a biopsy or surgery, Kallas said.

However the boy was infected, Kallas said, it could have occurred months or years ago. While he may recover completely and show no symptoms again, he may also develop epilepsy, suffer varying degrees of brain damage or even die, she said.

Doctors will continue to monitor Bernardino’s condition, said Ron Yukelson, hospital spokesman. If his appetite returns and he regains movement, he may be out of the hospital in a matter of days. Otherwise, Kallas said, he may remain for months.

“He may have seizures now for the rest of his life,” she said.

In the meantime, Bernardino’s parents can only wait and hope for the best.

“My wife got real nervous, but she’s all right now,” Felix Gonzalez said in a wavering voice. “And the doctor said our boy will be all right. We just have to wait and see.”