Folks,
A colleague of mine with some med tech experience (he teaches many of our premeds here), looked at the urine of a middle aged female and found what is obviously some parasites. You can see his sketches of what he found in the urine (he centrifuged it to concentrate the material) at url: http://www.dordt.edu/~mahaffy/pics/para2.jpg
Since I teach Zoology he asked me what it might be. It looked a bit Platyhelminthes to me. We looked at the latest edition (sixth) of Schmidt and Roberts. The eggs with their spine looked a bit like Schistosoma but other than bird Schistosoma (swimmers itch) I have never heard of the parasite being in the area. The person with the infection has not traveled to an area where human Schistosoma is common. The other structures don't fit well with other stages of Schistosoma. Can anyone help. We will of course send the patient to the local MD's but it doesn't sound like something that is common around here.
James Mahaffy (mahaffy at dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279
Biology Department FAX : 712 722-1198
Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250
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