Sunday, October 25, 2015

Case of the Week 369

This week's case was generously donated by Dr. Jane Hata. Several motile structures were seen in a bronchoalveolar lavage from an elderly woman with rapidly progressing shortness of breath and edema. She had a history of chronic heart failure and was receiving immunosuppressive medications for a renal transplant some years prior.

Identification?





14 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear Bobbi,
Round shaped flagellated protozoon.

Anonymous said...

Protozoan. Trichomonas hominis?

Anonymous said...

Not parasite

-HLCM fan

Anonymous said...

epethelial cells

Alan Higgins said...

Despite the immunosuppression, I cannot think of any flagellated protozoan respiratory pathogens, so I would say ciliated respiratory epithelial cells.

Anonymous said...

Ciliocytophthoria (detached ciliated epithelial cells). No parasite identified.

Anonymous said...

Ciliocytophthoria, these detached ciliated epithelial cells may at times mimic ciliated protozoans.

Florida Fan

Unknown said...

Not parasitic components in origin

Unknown said...

Not parasitic components in origin

Anonymous said...

I am thinking cilliated epithelial cells

Lee

Salbrent said...

ciliated epi cells

Unknown said...

I do not believe this is a parasite. More likely Ciliocytophthoria. The differential would be any ciliated protozoan that can infect humans, Balantidium coli would have been a possibility due to the site of infection and the fact that the patient was immunosuppressed. However the morphology is distinctly different from that of B.coli, which is very (very!) large in its ciliated trophozoite form and is covered in short cilia rather than a localised patch of long cilia. It also has a distinct peristome and kidney shaped macronucleus which is not present here.

Anonymous said...

Lophomonas blattarum, possibly

D Robert

Dr. M. Abbas said...

Lophomonas blattarum. Metronidazole or Tinidazole may be used for its treatment or control. If there is a better and permanent alternative treatment to get rid of this Lophomonas blattarum, kindly let me know through my email (drmabbasm@gmail.com) and in this post as well, so that others who are suffering from this difficult to treat and rare parasitic infection, may benefit from your so informative and useful blog. Thanks