Case of the Week 610

By Bobbi Pritt, M.D. • October 14, 2020

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I have a fun case for you this week from Dr. Richard Bradbury! The following structures were seen in a stool sample from a 2-year old child from a rural southern Australia with mucoid diarrhea, abdominal pain, and poor weight gain. Both an unstained web prep and iodine-stained prep are shown. The size of these objects ranges from 26–32 μm long by 16–17.5 μm wide. What's the identification?

Read Dr. Pritt's blog, Parasite Wonders, and submit your answers, comments, and questions. Also, visit her website ParasiteWonders.com, which hosts an archive of classic images from cases Dr. Pritt posted going back to 2007 (in an easy-to-search "A through Z" format) and also offers a flashcard feature.

Answer to Case 610:

Brachylaima cribbi, a parasitic trematode found only in Australia to date.

Bobbi Pritt, M.D.

Bobbi Pritt, MD, MSc, is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and the Director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. She is also the Chair of the Division of Clinical Microbiology. Her research interests are in clinical parasitology, vector-borne diseases and the pathology of infectious diseases.