Man endured a severely swollen and partially erect penis for 17 YEARS until doctors finally discovered the cause

A MAN with a severely swollen penis received a shock diagnosis after suffering in silence for 17 years.

The 72-year-old had lived with swelling in his leg, scrotum and penis – which made his member look partially erect – for almost two decades before doctors got to the root of its cause.

GettyThe man endured a swollen penis for 17 years before doctors diagnosed him with a little known tropical disease[/caption]

His curious symptoms were first spotted when he was hospitalised, a a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine by doctors at University Hospital Basel in Switzerland explained.

Medics noticed excess fluid in his leg, causing swelling that didn’t indent when pressure was applied to it.

A visit to a dermatology clinic in Basel later also revealed swelling in his penis and scrotum.

After a number of tests, the man was found to be infected with microscopic, thread-like worms that were causing inflammation in his private parts and leg.

He was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic filariasis.

This is a parasitic infection passed on by mosquitoes, where worms called nematodes invade the lymphatic system, which is responsible for fighting infections and maintaining the body’s fluid balance.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), lymphatic filariasis is considered globally as a neglected tropical disease.

Though the 72-year-old man had been living in Switzerland for 20 years, he’d emigrated there from Zimbabwe 20 years earlier.

Upon examining him, University Hospital Basel doctors noted that the patient’s eosinophil count was almost double the normal range, indicating an infection.

Eosinophils are white blood cells that become active when you have certain allergic diseases or infections.

“Magnetic resonance imaging of the pelvis showed swelling of the scrotal tissues on both sides,” doctors added.

Antibody tests came back positive forWuchereria bancrofti , the microscopic, thread-like worms and doctors were able to diagnose the patient with chronic lymphatic filariasis.

He was prescribed two powerful parasitic drugs to kill the worms.

“At follow-up two months after the completion of treatment, the patient’s symptoms had resolved,” doctors noted.

How does lymphatic filariasis spread?

Lymphatic filariasis can be caused by three types of threadlike parasitical worms:

Wuchereria bancrofti, which is responsible for 90 per cent of the cases

Brugia malayi, which causes most of the remainder of the cases

Brugia timori, which also causes the disease

The disease is caused from mosquitoes who’ve picked up the infection from biting other infected hosts.

A mosquito bite will deposit worm larvae onto the skin and into the body.

Once they hatch, the worms lodge themselves in the body’s human lymphatic system and block lymph drainage.

Most infected people won’t develop symptoms, but the parasites do inflict damage on their lymphatic systems.

A small number of people will develop lymphoedema – swelling in the arms, legs, breasts and genitals – and some men will suffer swelling of the scrotum called hydrocele .

Most people develop these symptoms years after being infected.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), worms can live for approximately six to eight years and, during their lifetime, produce millions of larvae that circulate in the blood.

Over 120 million people in 72 countries in Asia, Africa, the Western Pacific, and parts of the Caribbean and South America are effected by the tropical disease, the CDC says.

According to the NHS, there isn’t generally a risk of getting the infection in the UK.