Transcription
Hey, this is Medicos. Is perfection Ellis. Welcome to my series on hematology and oncology. We have been talking about red blood cells for a while, and we have discussed the pi'illo sites, or the abnormally shaped red blood cell. They included spherocytes, dacrocytes, schistocytes, acanthocytes, elliptocytes, and target cells, stomatocytes, etc., etc., etc. What else do we have? We have red blood cell inclusions. These are stuff included in the red blood cells.
Red blood cell inclusions include Howell-Jolly bodies, basophilic stippling, nucleated red blood cells, polychromasia, and lastly, parasites inside of the red blood cell, which is today's topic. So let's get started. There are two famous parasites that infect your red blood cells: they are malaria and babesiosis.
So malaria, for example, here we have one of them called Plasmodium falciparum. These forms are called ring forms. They are inclusion bodies inside of the red blood cell. These are the trophozoites of the malaria. On the other hand, the Babesia trophozoites appear as pear-shaped, elongated structures known as Maltese crosses or tetrads because they are foursome, such as Babesia microti. In malaria, there is stuff called hemozoin, which is a brownish deposit. This is absent in Babesia. Also, these are called gamonts, and in malaria, no gamonts in Babesia. Instead, we have the Maltese cross.
In short: malaria—ring form; Babesia—Maltese cross. And don't forget that Babesia can be present with other tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease. High-yield, and we are set. Malaria, Babesia—these are red blood cell inclusions because these parasites infect your red blood cells. I'll see in the next video. Be safe, stay happy, and study hard.