Answer to Case 546

Answer:Blastocystissp. andEntamoebasp.From Blaine: These images were captured by software trained to detect intestinal protozoa in trichrome-stained stool specimens. The final report wasEntamoeba histolytica/E. dispar andBlastocystissp. It is difficult to determine the species ofEntamoebafrom only four examplars, but the even peripheral chromatin and discrete karyosome are supportive ofE. histolytica/E. disparwhich is how this case was signed out from both the slides and the whole-slide scanned image. I see a lot of respondents placing weight on the cytoplasm, which I always take as a ‘soft’ feature – I prefer peripheral chromatin.The software we are training (still in validation stage) is designed to detectEntamoebabased on the nucleus (the amorphic forms of trophozoites created too many false positives when we tried to detect the entire organism). The software is not designed (at least at the moment) to identify theEntamoebato the species level. All slides flagged as positive with a high score of being positive are to be manually backread for confirmation and species-level ID. The software is more of a screening tool, in hopes of cutting down manual read of 70% of our negative trichromes.So to those who questions if artificial intelligence is going to make parasitologists obsolete - the answer is " no " ! Dr. Marc Courturier assures us in his comment: " Have no fear. We will all have jobs as expert parasitologists. This technology that Blaine and I have been work...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs