In a startling incident during a routine screening in the US state of Missouri, doctors discovered a fully intact fly in the transverse colon in the large intestine of a 63-year-old patient.
Matthew Bechtold, the chief of Gastroenterology at the University of Missouri, reportedly said that the fly, confirmed to be dead, posed a mystery as the patient had no recollection of ingesting it and exhibited no symptoms suggesting such an occurrence.
The patient informed doctors that he had only consumed clear liquids before the procedure, and two days prior, he had eaten pizza and lettuce. However, he couldn’t recall a fly being present in the food he consumed.
The perplexing findings were published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, describing the incident as a “very rare colonoscopy finding.”
Where did the fly enter from?
Bechtold suggested two possible routes for the fly’s entry – through consumption or via the rectum – but both presented challenges.
If ingested orally, digestive enzymes should have degraded the fly, making this scenario less likely.
“You would think that upper digestive enzymes and stomach acid would have degraded the fly. However, the fly was intact, making this hypothesis less likely,” Bechtold said.
On the other hand, if the fly entered from below, it would have to navigate a dark and curvy path in the large intestine, which also seemed “unlikely.”
“If from the bottom, an opening must have been created long enough for the fly to fly undetected into the colon and somehow make its way to the middle part of the colon with no light in a very curvy, large intestine.”
While rare cases of insects remaining intact throughout their journey into the digestive system have been documented, the specific circumstances of this case remain puzzling.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not actively track cases of intestinal myiasis, past incident of “moving worms” in stool has been found.
(With inputs from agencies)
