Monday, September 29, 2008

Dendrite

A patient comes in with acute onset ocular pain, visual blurring, and discharge. You notice chemosis (conjunctival edema) as conjunctivitis. After using a particular stain, you notice the characteristic feature seen above.

Challenge: What's the diagnosis?

Related Questions:
1. What kind of stain is this?

Image is shown under fair use.

2 comments:

Alex said...

pseudomonas?

Craig said...

pseudomonas is a good guess by the blue-green color, but that's actually the stain.
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Dendrite

This is herpes simplex (HSV-1) keratitis, a leading cause of corneal blindness in industrialized nations. Fluorescein staining shows a characteristic dendritic lesion.

Source: UpToDate, original photo courtesy Lawrence Slack.