During a routine screening in Missouri, USA, a shocking discovery was made when doctors found a fully intact fly in the transverse colon of a 63-year-old patient’s large intestine.
Matthew Bechtold, the Chief of Gastroenterology at the University of Missouri, revealed that the confirmed dead fly presented a mystery as the patient had no memory of ingesting it and displayed no symptoms indicating such an occurrence.
The patient reported having only consumed clear liquids before the procedure, with pizza and lettuce two days prior. However, he couldn’t recall encountering a fly in the food he had eaten.
The peculiar incident was documented in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, characterizing it as an exceedingly rare finding during a colonoscopy.
Addressing the question of how the fly entered, Bechtold proposed two potential routes – ingestion or via the rectum – both posing challenges.
If orally ingested, digestive enzymes should have broken down the fly, making this scenario less probable. Bechtold remarked, “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.”
On the other hand, if the fly entered from below, it would have had to navigate a dark and convoluted path in the large intestine, which also appeared “unlikely.”
While instances of insects remaining intact throughout their journey through the digestive system have been documented, the circumstances of this case remain perplexing.
In certain cases, insects, including flies and larvae, have survived stomach acid and the gastrointestinal environment, a phenomenon referred to as intestinal myiasis, potentially leading to infestations in the intestines, according to media reports.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not actively tracking cases of intestinal myiasis, previous incidents of “moving worms” in stool have been reported.
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