23 January 2024 (Tuesday) - NEQAS 2308

The boss was talking about the results of the most recent NEQAS microscopy exercise today. I’d looked at the parasitology that came with it, but had somehow missed this one. So I had a quick look.
The first film was from someone with hypereosinophilic syndrome and I got that right.
The second one – I’m claiming shenanigans on that. There were parasites inside the red cells. Tucked up close to the edges of the red cells. Plasmodium falciparum? Had we been given the information that the patient had been in the sticks in North America I might have considered babeosis. As might pretty much every other participant of the scheme who also had plumped for malaria… because we don’t see babeosis in the UK, and if we do see parasites we ask for the patient’s history.
Again I’ll make the observation that these NEQAS microscopy exercises aren’t always a fair assessment of what we do.

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