A man infected with a “brain-eating” amoeba has survived and largely recovered after experimental treatment with a decades-old drug.
In the summer of 2021, a 54-year-old man was brought to a hospital in Northern California after an unexplained seizure. When an MRI revealed a mysterious mass in the left side of his brain, he was transferred to the University of California, San Francisco , Medical Center. A brain biopsy and other tests revealed not a tumor, but an incredibly rare infection of the central nervous system caused by the amoeba.
Researchers later determined the organism represented a new species of amoeba, constituting its own genus. Balamuthia lives in soil, dust, and water, and it’s believed to enter the body via the lungs or via skin cuts. Spottiswoode and her colleagues started the patient on an aggressive suite of antiparasitic, antibacterial, and antifungal drugs delivered via 47 daily pills and an intravenous drip. But the drug cocktail was somewhat ad hoc, Spottiswoode admits. “It’s what’s recommended because it was what happened to be used in patients who survived,” she says.
After just 1 week of treatment with nitroxoline, the patient’s lesions shrank. Follow-up MRIs have revealed continued improvement, and the patient is now living at home. “I think he’s very much on his way to being one of the survivors of this disease,” Spottiswoode told a group of her colleagues in October 2022.
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