Living with Elephant's Body Parts

The "Elephant-syndrome", elephantiasis, by the name of it, patients develop thickening of skin and and underlying tissues (resembling the elephant's trunks) in the body parts. The areas of thickening of skin and tissues can occur in face, legs and even male genitals. The disease results in the affected body parts to swell up to the size of a fist or head. The abnormalities triggered by the disease not only lead to great inconvenience in the patients' daily lives, and also agony in the patients.

Extreme case of lower limb swelling.

The disease is initiated by thread-like parasitic worms with Wuchereria bancrofti being the most common cause, and is transmitted by mosquitoes. As the mosquito sucks blood from a human, it introduces the larvae of the parasitic worms which will travel to the human lymphatic system and develop into adult worms to a length ranging 1 to 4 inches. The worms will be living within the infected person for years (usually about 7 years), the longest ever recorded is 40 years.

A woman with enlarged arms.

The sexually matured worms will mate and release millions of microscopic larvae into the blood stream. As the adult worms live within the lymphatic, obstruction of the vessels will lead to swelling, especially in the lower body especially the legs and the genital areas. Therefore, the parasites, as well as the body immune system, contribute to the development of elephantiasis which takes years to show. On the other hand, the disease may develop without being infected by the parasites.

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The picture shows an enlarged scrotum, affected about 4% of the infected males.

It has been evident that if a pregnant woman got infected by W. bancrofti, her child will have the chance to be infected as well. This can be explained by the parasite's antigens being passed to the fetus' blood circulation. Another scenario will be the fetus becomes tolerant to the parasites' antigens. In future, parasite infection (of the same antigens as the one presented in fetus stage) will be able to evade the host immune system of that child and leading to the development of elephantiasis more easily.

Currently, the medication available is only able to kill the adult worms within the lymphatic system, while the larvae not responsive to treatment.