Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Case of the Week 272

This weeks case was generously donated by Florida Fan.  The following worm was found in the feces of a 15 month-old boy who is in otherwise good health.  The worm is approximately 10 cm in length and has a tightly coiled appearance:

Closer examination of the worm (100x and 400x magnification) revealed a small spiked proboscis:


Flattening the proboscis between 2 slides and focusing up and down in different planes showed the individual hooks on the proboscis:




Individual eggs can be seen inside the gravid female:


Here are individual eggs  retrieved from the worm, measuring between 75 - 90 microns in length:


 Identification?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that D shaped egg for Enterobius vermicularis?

Malassezia said...

Looks like a case of acanthocephaliasis! Egg and adult seem to both resemble Moniliformis moniliformis.

Lukus Roberts said...

agree with Malassezia, the probocis gives away its acanthocephalan identity and the morphology, size and the gross anatomy of the egg suggests M. moniliformis. The kid likely consumed a beetle or cockroach intermediate host to get infected. Nice unusual case!

Anonymous said...

in the last picture the devoloping cercarie looks like Schistosoma.