Inside Collection (Textbook): Images of Memorable Cases: 50 Years at the Bedside
Urine sediment and colonic mucosa from a 53-year- old woman with nonproductive cough, reticulonodular densities on chest radiograph, chronic diarrhea, and recent treatment with large doses of corticosteroids.
The free-swimming worms in this patient’s urine proved to be larvae of Strongyloides stercoralis. These larvae were also identified in her colonic mucosa (image below, arrows). Although finding larvae in the urine of patients with disseminated strongyloidiasis is rare, it points immediately to the correct diagnosis and prevents what could become a baffling clinical problem with a fatal outcome.