Case Report
Year: 2016 | Month: December | Volume: 6 | Issue: 12 | Pages: 372-375
The Brain Eating Amoeba! An Unusual Case Report
Sanchari Saha1*, Reeta Dhar2*, D B Borkar3*, Smriti Dewan4**, ShaliniYadav5**, Urshlla Kaul1*
1Post Graduate Resident, 2Professor and Head, 3Professor, 4Pathologist, 5Microbiologist,
*Dept of Pathology, M.G.M. University of Health Sciences, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra.
**M.G.M Hospital, Navi Mumbai, Mahrashtra.
Corresponding Author: Sanchari Saha
ABSTRACT
Acanthamoeba is a eukaryotic protist that occurs world-wide and can potentially cause infections in humans and other animals. Acanthamoeba cause the insidious and mostly fatal disease, granulomatous amoebic encephalitis (GAE), particularly in immunocompromised or otherwise debilitated individuals. Acanthamoeba meningoencephalitis, also known as GAE is a rare, but nearly always fatal disease, caused by infection with Acanthamoeba species. The organism enters the nasal cavity when water contaminated with amoebae is aspirated. Subsequently, it invades the central nervous system through the olfactory neuroepithelium, disseminates via haematogenous spread, and migrates into CNS at the blood brain barrier, and causes a fatal infection. We report a case of granulomatous amoebic meningoencephalitis (GAE)in an eleven year old male child, who was immunocompromised, a known case of AML (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia-type II), on chemotherapy, presenting with fever, headache, altered sensorium and seizures, with positive meningeal signs, where on wet mount cytology of CSF suggested Acanthamoeba.
Key words: AML, Acanthamoeba sp, Granulomatous Amoebic Meningoencephalitis, Rare disease.