Misdiagnosis of Amebiasis
| About misdiagnosis: When checking for a misdiagnosis of Amebiasis or confirming a diagnosis of Amebiasis, it is useful to consider what other medical conditions might be possible misdiagnoses or other alternative conditions relevant to diagnosis. These alternate diagnoses of Amebiasis may already have been considered by your doctor or may need to be considered as possible alternative diagnoses or candidates for misdiagnosis of Amebiasis. For a general overview of misdiagnosis issues for all diseases, see Overview of Misdiagnosis. |
Discussion of diagnosis/misdiagnosis of Amebiasis:
Diagnosis of amebiasis can be very difficult. One problem is that other parasites and cells can
look very similar to E. histolytica when seen under a microscope. Therefore, sometimes people
are told that they are infected with E. histolytica even though they are not.
Entamoeba histolytica and another amoeba, Entamoeba dispar, which is about 10 times more common, look the same when seen under a microscope. Unlike infection with
E. histolytica, which sometimes makes people sick, infection with E. dispar never makes people sick and therefore does not need
to be treated.
If you have been told that you are infected with E. histolytica but you are feeling fine, you might
be infected with E. dispar instead. Unfortunately, most laboratories do not yet have the tests that
can tell whether a person is infected with E. histolytica or with E. dispar. Until these tests become more widely available, it usually is best to assume that the parasite is
E. histolytica.1
Misdiagnosis cases for Amebiasis:
No cases available yet.
Footnotes:
1. excerpt from Amebiasis: DPD
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