[Porocephalosis].

A diagnostic laparotomy was performed in a bush hospital on a 35-year-old African woman with a 10-year history of abdominal pain. It revealed hundreds of small calcified masses, 1-2 cm in diameter, throughout the abdominal cavity. Histological examination of a biopsy specimen from the peritoneum showed nearly complete calcification of tissue nodules with questionable parasite residues. A plain X-ray film of the abdomen, which it had been impossible to obtain earlier, had comma- and horseshoe-like calcifications which were interpreted as calcified residues of Armillifer, a parasite endemic in snakes. The patient used to eat snake meat frequently. There is no causal treatment of this infestation, termed pentastomiasis or porocephalosis.