Monday, August 7, 2017

Case of the Week 455

This week's impressive case was donated by Dr. Peter Gilligan and Dr. John Hunt. The patient is a middle-aged man from Nigeria who presented with signs of increased intracranial pressure including nausea and vomiting. An MRI showed dilated ventricles and irregular lesions in the cerebellum. Below is the material that was resected:

The following are H&E-stained images of this material. Identification?



13 comments:

Dwight Ferris said...

Neurocysticercosis caused by Taenia solium

Anonymous said...

Great case boss! Perhaps this is the greatest fear when consuming raw or undercooked pork. Most of us who work in the traditional Parasitology lab rarely have an encounter with these cases and if not for the Blog, we would certainly forget or never know such important parasitic infections.

Florida Fan

Sheldon Campbell said...

Agree with neurocysticercocis; but it's not from undercooked pork, it's from an infected human. Cysticercosis occurs when Taenia solium mistakes a human for a pig -- they are, after all, worms, and not super-bright -- and encysts in us.

Anonymous said...

It is probably neurocysticercosis by Taenia solium. The infection was possibly caused by fecal-oral transmission, by ingestion of eggs or gravid proglottids of the worm contaminating water and / or food; although autoinfestation could also be considered.

Blaine Mathison said...

This is coenurosis, the location in the brain is suggestive of Taenia multiceps.
Please note multiple protoscoleces per bladder; cysticerci of Taenia solium have only one protoscolex per bladder!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Echinococal

William Sears said...

Taenia multiceps? Taenia Solium? Don't know how to differentiate using protoscolex at this cross section.

ChickenKatha said...

Taenia were the first parasites to terrorize and fascinate me when I first learned about them upon my arrival in Mexico 50 years ago. I have since become a devout fan of parasite studies because of my animal husbandry. My fondest desire would be to become a "parasite behaviorist" because when you know what they crave, you can capture them. Recently I hacked up an item that looked very much like the posterior 1/3 of a round worm but my doctor breezily dismissed it saying, "If that had been in your lung you'd be dead already." A week apart, I hacked up two more "bots" from the right lung. Doctors tell me I almost assuredly have lung cancer, but I feel too healthy for that, also no blood emission. My vet said it looked too fat for a toxocara canis. Wanna see?

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

I have these clear bubbles in my poop and perfectly clear pictures of them I need help.

Unknown said...

Text someone's asking me for a picture I don't know how to do that