pathtalk.org is a weblog about pathology and laboratory medicine.

Posts from May 2010

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Date
May 19, 2010
4:24 pm

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Category
General

“This is what your healthcare is going to look like.”

Last month I was in a post office standing in a particularly long line for that location. The line eventually extended beyond the lobby and outside the doors. The delay seemed to stem from the fact that this was between 12 and 1 PM when there were several customers and only 1 staff member during [...]

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Date
May 19, 2010
4:22 pm

Tagged

Category
Cases, Microbiology

Case of the Week 52

The following images were taken from a Giemsa-stained peripheral blood smear. The different stages of the organism shown represent a single species, and each stage is characteristic for this species. The stages are so characteristic, in fact, that each has an ‘unofficial’ name (e.g. nick-name) or description. Question 1 – What organism (genus and species) [...]

Posted by

Date
May 19, 2010
4:19 pm

Tagged

Category
Cases, Microbiology

Answer to Case of the Week 51

Answer: Not a parasite. Most closely resembles pollen. I included this case since the object in some of the photos resembles a helminth egg (Toxocara canis or Capillaria spp. comes to mind). The key to recognizing that this is not an egg is in the last photograph which clearly shows the pores in the thick [...]

Posted by

Date
May 11, 2010
11:56 am

Tagged

Category
Cases, Microbiology

Case of the Week 51

The following were seen in a concentrated wet preparation of stool. No history is available. Identification?

Posted by

Date
May 2, 2010
4:31 pm

Tagged

Category
Microbiology

Answer to Case of the Week 50

Answer: As stated by cmassey, “Toxoplasma gondii. Criteria: rupturing cyst with what appear to be escaping tachyzoites. Morphology is crescent shape with a large nucleus and they appear to fit in the 4-8um by 2-3um size given in diagnostic literature.” Great job to everyone who wrote in! This case demonstrates a few nice features of [...]