This week features our monthly case from Idzi Potters and the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp.
A 45-year-old female patient, suspected of having an infection with Strongyloides stercoralis, provided a stool specimen for Baermann concentration. The following structure was found, measuring about 300 µm in extended state. Diagnosis please.
12 comments:
Looks like a rotifer to me.
First, I would go with Bob's identification. My question is that how rotifers end up in the patient's feces? The other question is what is their clinical significance? Did the patient drink raw untreated water? As a boy, I used to net these to feed my baby beta fighters as even mosquito larvae are too big for them.
Florida Fan
Classical rotifer movement. One of our small animal clinicians sent me a similar video this year. She and the residents were not familiar with these organisms.
Rotifero. Si riconosce dal "mastax".
Carlo Alberto
Rotiferos, without clinical significance
I agree with everyone. I believe it is a bdelloid rotifer which is a very environmentally flexible critter. Often found in polluted waters but can withstand desiccation for many years. I can imagine direct exposure from swimming in contaminated water or maybe ingesting desiccated rotifers. Also review the Baermann process. Are the funnels clean, what is the source of water, were the funnels used on other materials? I go along with Dr. Solorzano, no clinical significance.
Point of interest. In this year of the women, it should be noted that bdelloid rotifers are all female. Able to be successful for millennia while maintaining genetic diversity by taking DNA from other creatures.
Also apologies to Idzi. If this diagnosis was made in his lab, I believe there would be no contamination issues with the Baerman.
Agree with all this is a rotifer and it probably represents some level of contamination probably a water source. I have seen them in stained slides where the contamination was probably water used in making stain or rinse buffer.
Hahaaa... no apologies needed Old One! ;-)
If I recall correctly, we cleaned all materials with bleach -just in case- but the source, most likely, must have been the sample itself of course :-) (possibly taken out of a toilet flushed with rain water, or worse...).
We are all looking at an animalcule which has adapted to living in many conditions including decomposing organic material, is capable of forming a cyst-like resting stage, and has no need to find a mate but is capable of adaptations with the help of borrowed DNA. Are these rotifers standing on the doorstep of becoming parasitic? Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.
Well....technically some rotifers are parasites. The acanthocephalans are essentially giant parasitic rotifers, or if not they are their closest relatives!
Blaine: That's very interesting, could you elaborate some more? BTW, I just found an acanthocephalan in our lab. The problem is that the worm is rebelling and would not stick the beautiful thorny rostrum out even for a photograph. I hate to have the precious sample decapitated and sectioned by AP. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
Florida Fan
Post a Comment