A woman who had been suffering with stomach pains for more than a decade has had a foot-long parasitic worm pulled out of her intestines.
Ms Yang had been to numerous doctors over the past 10 years but her chronic abdominal pain was undiagnosed.
The 41-year-old said: "It would hurt on and off at first. It’s not always unbearable, but I would feel obvious discomfort in my stomach."
Doctor Li Juan advised her to have an endoscopy, where the shocking discovery in Ms Wang’s bowels.
Experts at the Second People’s Hospital of Haining in east China discovered the giant roundworm on Friday.
The fat white worm, measuring 12 inches in length, was writhing inside the woman’s intestines, which appeared to have the “ideal conditions” to sustain its growth, the medic said.
Doctor Li grasped the parasite’s big head with a pair of raptor forceps and yanked the entire length of the roundworm out via the endoscopy incision.
Ms Yang is likely to have been suffering from Ascariasis, the most common infection of the giant roundworm in humans.
The condition, which is caused by poor sanitation, goes unnoticed in the majority of cases, especially if the number of worms is small.
However, symptoms in adults include abdominal swelling, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.
In affected children, poor weight gain, malnutrition, and learning difficulties are often seen too.
Doctor Li, who claimed her nurses were also shocked by the find, admitted: “I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Her intestines provided the ideal conditions for the parasite to grow, but it was still surprising to see a case in person.”
Ms Yang revealed she grew up drinking unboiled water, which is thought to be a contributing factor to her Ascariasis.