Case of the Week 646
This week ' s case was donated to us by Dr. Will Sears. He and his wife found the following worm in a puddle in Zion national park. This interesting worm is also occasionally submitted to the clinical parasitology laboratory. What is it? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - July 19, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 646
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 646: Gordiid/nematomorph, a.k.a. horsehair or Gordian worm (Nematomorpha: Gordiida). Not a human parasite. This is one of my favorite human parasite mimics. It is occasionally submitted to the human clinical parasitology laboratory - often after being found in the toilet or other body of water - and can be easily differentiated from true human parasitic worms by its long slender shape, said to resemble a horse hair. In their2012 publication, " Going Solo: Discovery of the First Parthenogenetic Gordiid (Nematomorpha: Gordiida), Hanelt et al. write: The Nematom...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - July 18, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 645
This week ' s case was donated by Seanne Buckwalter, and her golden doodle, Ruby. Ruby acquired this interloper from Seanne ' s back yard in southeastern Minnesota. Identification? And do you think the geographic location fits with the identification? Finally, what pathogens does this arthropod transmit? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - July 6, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 645
Answer to Parasite Case of the Week 645:Amblyomma americanumadult female tick.TheOracle nicely described what we are seeing here and its implications: " Given the position of the capitulum, we can immediately argue this is a hard tick (family Ixodidae). Even though we don ' t have a ventral picture, the number of legs, the quite long mouthparths and, more importantly, the white spot on the scutum allow us to diagnose an adult female ofAmblyomma americanum, even though Minnesota isn ' t the expected geographic location. This may possibly reflect the tremendous effects of climate change... TheOracle further c...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - July 4, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
The Ivermectin and Covid-19 conundrum
In conclusion, the above implications are basically saying there is lack of good evidence for IVM in Covid-19.
There is evidence also that IVM does not work for Covid-19. See this recent paper, highlighted by a Dobber:
Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
This analysis concluded “…in comparison to SOC or placebo, IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality, length of stay, respiratory viral clearance, adverse events and serious adverse events in RCTs of patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. We did not find data about IVM effects on clinica...
Source: Malaysian Medical Resources - July 4, 2021 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Editor Tags: Miscellaneous covid-19 ivermectin SARS-cov-2 Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 644
This week ' s case is from Blaine Mathison and Marc Couturier at ARUP Laboratories. They partnered with Techcyte to develop and validate an exciting new system that uses artificial intelligence to identify parasites on digitally-scanned slides (see theirrecent article). Here is a case in which the following objects from a trichrome-stained stool specimen were identified by AI for the technologist ' s review. They measure approximately 8 to 9 micrometers in diameter. Identification? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 28, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 644
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 644:Cyclospora cayetanensisoocysts on trichrome stain. Additional confirmatory testing (e.g., modified acid fast, UV autofluorescence) is recommended for confirmation. As I mentioned previously, the image from this case was the display screen from the Techcyte AI analysis of a digitally-scanned trichrome-stained slide. You can see that the digital algorithm did an excellent job identifying objects of interest and displaying them to the technologist for review. Use of AI platforms is the future of clinical parasitology, as it drastically reduces the time that technologists have t...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 27, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Rapid Diagnosis of Infectious Disease at Point of Care: Interview with Shawn Marcel, CEO of Torus Biosystems
Torus Biosystems, a medtech startup that spun out of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, has developed the Synestia system, a point of care diagnostic tool for infectious disease. The system aims to provide rapid, point-of-care identification of pathogens, and incorporates microarray and qPCR technology.
The company reports that the system allows a clinician to run multiple tests on one device to detect all the pathogens associated with a specific disease. The run-time is rapid, with the device providing results in as little as 30 minutes, and for each sample over 1000 targets can ...
Source: Medgadget - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Exclusive Medicine Public Health torusbiosystems Source Type: blogs
Rapid Diagnosis of Infectious Disease at Point of Care: Interview with Shawn Marcell, CEO of Torus Biosystems
Torus Biosystems, a medtech startup that spun out of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, has developed the Synestia system, a point of care diagnostic tool for infectious disease. The system aims to provide rapid, point-of-care identification of pathogens, and incorporates microarray and qPCR technology.
The company reports that the system allows a clinician to run multiple tests on one device to detect all the pathogens associated with a specific disease. The run-time is rapid, with the device providing results in as little as 30 minutes, and for each sample over 1000 targ...
Source: Medgadget - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Exclusive Medicine Public Health torusbiosystems Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 643
This week ' s case is one I ' ve previously shown before, but from many years ago. It ' s so cool looking that I thought it was worth showing again. The following object was found in a iodine-stained stool concentrate by Florida Fan. Any thoughts on what it is? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 21, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 643
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 643: Not a parasite; plant material. As mentioned by Idzi, Bernardino, and Phil G-J, this beautiful structure is apeltate trichome, possibly from an olive (Olea) leaf. Bernardino Rocha provided a greatlink to this open access article and the photos look just like what we are seeing. To obtain further insight, I contacted our knowledgeable botanist reader, Dr. Mary Parker, and was pleased to hear that she agrees with our assessment! She commented that this structure is definitely a peltate trichome and could quite possibly be from the lower epidermis of a leaf of an oli...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 20, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 642
It ' s time for our monthly case from Idzi Potters and theInstitute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp. As always, Idzi has a great case for us - courtesy of Anna Rosanas and Pieter Guetens from ITM ' s Malariology Department: a patient with extensive recent travel - leaving Belgium to trek across rural areas of Peru, Niger, Mali, and finally the Philippines. He didn ' t take any malaria prophylaxis while traveling and now presents with fever and general malaise after being home for 3 weeks. The following are thick and thin Giemsa-stained blood films from this patient (pH 8.0). The percent parasitemia was calculated at 1%. Iden...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 7, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 642
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 642:Plasmodiumsp. infection with relatively high (1%) parasitemia; differential diagnosis includes mixedP. falciparum/P. malariaeinfection andP. knowlesiinfection. Recommend nucleic acid amplification testing for definitive identification.PCR testing confirmed that this wasP. knowlesiinfection!This interesting case highlights the difficulty in diagnosingP. knowlesiinfection, given that many of its key morphologic features in humans overlap with those ofP. falciparumandP. malariae. LikeP. falciparum,high parasitemias may be observed, and thin delicate rings - occasionally with dou...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 6, 2021 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 7th 2021
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 6, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
When Viruses Collide with Parasitic Worms
Infection with some parasitic worms may lead to an impaired immune response against pathogenic infections by other parasites, bacteria, and some viruses. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - June 3, 2021 Category: Virology Authors: Gertrud U. Rey Tags: Basic virology Gertrud Rey flavivirus Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri helminth Hpb IL-4 parasites STAT6 succinate tuft cells type 2 immune responses West Nile virus WNV worms Source Type: blogs
