Sunday, April 21, 2019

Answer to Case 541

Answer to Parasite Case of the Week 541: not a parasite; citrus juice vesicles.

This is a not-uncommon finding in stool that is helpful to recognize, since it is occasionally submitted as a potential parasite. In this case, the patient reported eating clementines regularly. So here is a dissection of a clementine for comparison:


Pretty good, huh? Of course it's not possible to recognize the type of citrus from this case alone, and a report of "not a human parasite" is usually sufficient for patient care.
Wikipedia has a nice article on juice vesicles if you would like more information.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much!!! I thought I was gonna have to go to the hospital lmaooo glad to know my stomach just doesn’t do so well with Clementines 😂😂😂

Anonymous said...

I totally did this! Found this in my baby's stool. Then noticed it in my dog's stool so I freaked out and took poop to the ER thinking my child had a parasite!