Answer to Case 609

 Answer toParasite Case of the Week 609: Not a parasite egg.Idzi and I debated over what this is exactly but couldn ' t come up with a good answer. I like Old One ' s, Florida Fan ' s, and Sir Galahad ' s suggestion that it could be a mushroom spore. Regardless, it is too small and irregular to be aSchistosoma haematobiumegg, and it lacks the features for other parasite eggs - all good news for the patient. Sam queried if this could be a uric acid crystal, which is a good thought. However, uric acids have a slightly different appearance in my experience (see previous postsHERE).As Sheldon, Marc and Nandhu point out, we can excludeS. haematobiumbased on the following features: There is no miracidium inside of the eggThe eggs is only ~75 micrometers long (expected size forS. haematobiumis 110 - 170 micrometers)Thanks to everyone who wrote in on this case!
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs