A doctor removes the world’s biggest fungus from a woman’s brain in MP

A team of doctors at Indore’s Medicare Hospital has successfully removed the world’s biggest white fungus found on a human’s body from the brain of a 50-year-old covid recovered patient in Madhya Pradesh. 

50-year-old Kala Bai from Dhar district in Indore finally tested negative for Covid-19 in mid-May, after multiple weeks of struggling with the dangerous infection. Soon after she recovered, she started feeling tiredness and immense weakness on the right side of her body. On the attending doctor’s advice, her family got a CT scan done of her brain, where a lesion of the size of a peanut was found. She decided to rest at home and isolate herself for a few weeks. But, to add to her troubles, the weakness on her right side soon started getting worse.

At this point, she decided to consult neurosurgeon Deepak Kulkarni at Indore’s Medicare Hospital. After a complete neurologic history and physical examination, they got an MRI done of her brain. In the past two weeks, the peanut-size lesion visible in her earlier CT scan had grown by over 20 times. The tumour started from the frontal region going to the parietal region, then the post-parietal region, and almost up to the occipital region. Dr. Kulkarni, who has an experience of 25 years in the field of neurosurgery, diagnosed it as a classic case of a malignant brain tumour and scheduled surgery.

Dr. Kulkarni, along with his team of doctors, operated on Kala Bai’s brain on June 8, 2021, and removed a mass, then perceived tumour, of the size of 8.4 X 4 X 4.6 cm by volume. They sent it to histopathology (biopsy) to further examine the mass, as is the routine procedure. Except the results were not typical at all. According to Dr Kulkarni, the supposed tumour was white fungus, which has been found to be the largest white fungus in any patients’ body in the world.

Dr. Kulkarni, one of the most celebrated neurosurgeons in the world with two Guinness books of world records’ at his name, was extremely shocked at the biopsy. He said that he had removed 16 bullets from the brains of different patients in the span of his career; he has also removed an axe that was fixed in a patient’s head. He has never seen anything like this before. A white fungus of this size in a patient’s brain is definitely a unique thing.

White fungus is no threat to someone with intact immunity, but patients who have had Covid have compromised immunity and are likely to be attacked by these fungus variants. In the case of white fungus, its symptoms depend on the body part attacks. It can be very lethal if it attacks the brain. 

In this case, the white fungus presented itself in the brain the same way a tumour would, with familiar symptoms. The patient had difficulty in speech, and dense hemiplegia or paralysis on the right side, with a problem moving her limbs. She is now on anti-fungal medicines and physiotherapy. It will take her some time, but she will most probably fully recover.