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I received a very interesting letter this morning from a student of mine. I will post part of it here: "I attended your course in Houston a couple of months ago and have a question. I was in Belize performing ultrasound using a Sonosite portable machine in March. Several of the women had some type of fasciculating / flagellating thing in their bladders. They seemed to be adherent to the bladder wall and be from 1 to 3 cm in length. I also saw a larger bladder tumor and a couple of kidney masses.
Is it possible to see Schistosomal "bladder flukes" in the bladder on ultrasound? I haven't found a reference for it."
Thanks,
Dr DS
I did a search on this topic, and came up with pretty interesting hits. Most flukes attack the liver, gall bladder, and gastro-intestinal systems in humans. I found very little on urinary bladder parasites. Certainly it is possible to have bladder parasites, and schistosomal infections are rampant in third world countries. I have never seen an image of a urinary bladder parasite on an ultrasound. If anyone has further information along these lines, including sonograms of parasites, I would be interested in talking with you. Thanks in advance!
1 comment:
If you can image an artery... and if you're using a high resolution unit... then it should be possible to image all kinds of parasites (they would have to be big enough to image)... not just the ones in the bladder. Surprisingly I can't find anything much about this kind of imaging. However they are able to image the bones of small animals with ultrasonography... so the resolution is there if you have the right instrument.
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