Monday, April 29, 2013

Case of the Week 255

A Sudanese refugee was seen for progressive confusion, daytime somnolence and personality disturbances. Despite treatment, he died and an autopsy was performed.  Sections of brain revealed the following:

Perivascular lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, H&E 400x

Lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, H&E 1000x

Lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, H&E 1000x

A peripheral blood smear obtained prior to death showed the following:


Diagnosis? 
What is the object seen in image 3 (also present in image 2)?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense/rhodiense

The object is a Mott cell (plasma cell)

Malassezia said...

Interesting. Agree with T. brucei. I believe there's only T. b. gambiense in Sudan, but depending on his travel history, rhodesiense is a possibility as well.

The object is a morula cell.

DrMano78 said...

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is my guess as well. Not sure of the other objects seen in image 2 and 3. Thanks for the case

Anonymous said...

I agree, T. brucei gambiense/rhodesiense. The geographic origin gave the biggest clue as well the microscopic morphology with a small kinetoplast and the relative large size of the trypanosome.

Florida Fan

Duru, Vincent C. said...

I think it is T.b.rhodesiense(the east African trypanosomiasis) and the fig.2 should be nodes of glial cell