Sunday, March 16, 2008

Case of the Week 13

Welcome to the Parasite Case of the Week.
Every Monday there will be a new case, as well as the answer to the previous case (you will find it below the corresponding case). Please feel free to leave a comment or your thoughts regarding the diagnosis. Enjoy!

The following was seen in an formalin-fixed iodine-stained wet mount fecal preparation. It is approximately 15um in diameter. Other examples of the organism in this sample all measure 12-15 um and have 4 nuclei or less. Click on the image to enlarge.

Name 3 possible diagnoses.











Image was taken at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Used with Permission.

2 comments:

Heather said...

Tentatively Entamoeba histolytica. Would be nice to confirm with stain, though...:)

Heather said...

I should've read the instructions more closely. I'm sorry! :( I would also include Entamoeba coli and Entamoeba hartmanni in my consideration, although E. hartmanni should be 10 um or less, and E. coli is usually larger than the 12-15 um seen here. A permanent stain would help to show more differentiating characteristics, though, like size and location of karysomes and chromatin thickness and texture.