Monday, January 30, 2017

Case of the Week 432

This week's case was generously donated by Dr. Nicole Hubbard. Small white motile objects were seen in a infant's stool specimen by the mother and a stool ova and parasite exam was ordered. The results of the stool exam were negative however, and objects continued to be seen; therefore representative objects were placed in formalin and sent to the laboratory for identification. They measured approximately 12 mm in greatest dimension. By manipulating the objects with forceps, the following structures were identified:

4x objective
10x objective
 40x objective

Identification?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going with plant, specifically a seed pod.
Very intriguing!
BW in Vt

Anonymous said...

Dipylidium caninum mainly infects dogs and cats, but is occasionally found in humans.

Matthew Rollosson said...

4 millimeters and motile?

ParasiteGal said...

Good point Matthew; this would be a bit small. We probably didn't receive an intact specimen. To decrease confusion, I updated this to 12 mm (and motile).

Anonymous said...

Eggs in packets, small white, rice grain shaped objects, motile when freshly passed in stool. All indications point toward Dipyllidium caninum. We should also remember that Fido is not the only carrier, in fact we had a case where the owner was infected along with her pussy cat.
As far as size is concerned, when freshly passed, the motile proglotids will average 7mm and within a minute will shrink down to 3-5mm and become motionless (my Scooby had it too).
Now that the child has it, we will need to treat both the patient as well as the pet.

Florida Fan

Unknown said...

dipilidium caninum

Michele Calatri said...

Classic 9-eggs-clusters of Dipylidium caninum

honey said...

Dipylidium caninum

William Sears said...

Dypillidium caninum eggs