Editor's quiz: GI snapshot
Amoebic liver abscess or is it?
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Mackay Medicine, Nursing and Management College, Taipei, Taiwan
Correspondence to:
Dr C-C Lin, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mackay Memorial Hospital, No. 92, Sec. 2, Chung-Shan North Road, Taipei, Taiwan; sunny.lin56@msa.hinet.net
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
CLINICAL PRESENTATION
A 63-year-old man presented with a 5-day history of fever and blood-tinged watery diarrhoea. His examination was otherwise unremarkable except for a harsh systolic ejection murmur. Laboratory studies revealed a white blood cell count of 18.1x109/l, haemoglobin 9.9 g/dl, haematocrit 29.2% and aspartate aminotransferase 80 U/l. An indirect haemagglutination assay (IHA) for Entamoeba histolytica yielded a titre of 1:512. Abdominal CT showed a huge abscess in the right lobe of the liver (fig 1). Although CT-guided percutaneous drainage yielded chocolate-like pus, the smear stained with merthiolate iodine formaldehyde, demonstrating Blastocystis hominis cyst-like trophozoites (fig 2). These were also seen in a smear of a stool sample, but E histolytica was not seen on that examination. An HIV antibody test was negative.
Figure 1 A huge abscess in the right lobe of the liver.
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Figure 2 Smear of pus from the liver abscess showing a cyst-like trophozoite of | |||||||||
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Gut 2008 57: 683.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
This article has been cited by other articles:
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Tan, K. S. W.
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