Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Case of the Week 397

This week's case is a blood specimen from an elderly gentleman from Arkansas. He is asplenic and has received multiple blood transfusions for chronic anemia. Below are images from Wright-Giemsa stained thin films taken by our Clinical Microbiology fellow, Poornima.



Identification?
What is the likely species involved in this case?


14 comments:

dgoose said...

Babesia, beautiful "Maltese cross" in the first picture

Unknown said...

Babesia...Do you see much of that in the area, In Arkansas? Could also be transfusion related though...

Eagleville said...

Woo hoo, babesia! Most likely B.microti

Eagleville said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
infectiologue said...

I have a question: Why does Babesia form the tetrad? is it the asexual reproduction of one ring to 4? It doesn't look like a multiple infection or other stage of development.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Babesia...Lee

Never saw crosses like that in real life!

Unknown said...

Babesia sp. What a beautiful sight!!

Anonymous said...

Babesia

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long he was infected

Anonymous said...

Nice case of Babesia, most likely microstrip.

Florida Fan

Dr Myrna Bobis said...

Babesia sp very beautiful Giemsa staining of the blood specimen.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the mispelling, I meant Babesia microtti. The not always wonderful "Spelling Check" program simply threw me a curved ball.

Florida Fan

Anonymous said...

Babesia sp.- PCR for species identification would be helpful.Babesia duncani,microti,divergens, and the MO-1 strain should be considered.Missouri borders Arkansas.

Anonymous said...

TTB - transfusion transmitted B. microti