5 January 2018 (Friday) - Negative ?

Here’s an interesting case which came up on one of the Facebook groups I follow:

“60 y-o male visited India and came back with fever. WBC: 5.3 giga/L, RBC: 4.94 tera/L, Hgb: 136 g/L, MCV: 82 fL, Plt: 108 giga/L. Included here are images from his peripheral blood taken when he was in the ER. They are from a thin film, stained with Wright stain.

Malaria Rapid Test for P falciparum is negative.

Hematopathologist's comments: "Malaria parasites present, favour Plasmodium vivax." The EDTA sample, together with stained thin and thick films were sent to our Provincial Centre for Disease Control Lab for species confirmation and P vivax was confirmed”

Note “Malaria Rapid Test for P falciparum is negative”. Just because the rapid test is negative, you really should still go on and look at the slide. I sometimes wonder why those rapid tests are used. So many false negatives…