Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites

This week's case was generously donated by Florida Fan. The patient is an otherwise well woman in her 30's who passed the following ...

Answer: Tapeworm,  Diphyllobothrium species This case shows the classic morphology of an adult tapeworm, consisting of a flat ribbon-like ...

This week's case was kindly donated by one of my former Clinical Microbiology fellows, Dr. Adam Caulfield. The specimen (shown below) wa...

Answer: Bot fly,  Dermatobia hominis As mentioned by Florida Fan, the body has spiky projections and general body habitus consistent with ...

This week's case was generously donated by Dr. Richard Bradbury. The following biphasic population of organisms was seen after corneal s...

Answer: Acanthamoeba species cysts and trophozoites. The diagnosis can be made by the characteristic morphology in conjunction with the clin...

Happy July 4th to my American readers! Here is a nice red, white and blue case for you. The following objects were seen in a stool specimen ...

Answer: Cystoisospora belli (formerly Isospora belli ) oocysts As with Cyclospora cayetanensis and Cryptosporidium oocysts, the oocysts of...

This week's case is generously donated by Dr. Kamran Kadkhoda. This little arthropod was discovered in Manitoba, Canada. Identification?...

Answer: Dermacentor variabilis The CDC has a nice basic pictorial identification key that you can access HERE . This key will walk you thr...