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Case Reports
. 2020 Dec;42(3):487-490.

Of "Cotton Balls" and "Owl's eyes"

S Misra  1 , A Gupta, R K Saran
Affiliations
  • PMID: 33361734
Free article
Case Reports

Of "Cotton Balls" and "Owl's eyes"

S Misra et al. Malays J Pathol. 2020 Dec.
Free article

Abstract

Report of a 3-month old girl child who died due to multi-systemic infection of cytomegalovirus (CMV) involving the lungs, liver and kidneys along with pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PJP). The mother of the child tested positive for CMV IgG and HIV with a very low CD4 count (160/ μl). Co-infection of cytomegalovirus and pneumocystis jiroveci always occurs in the setting of immunocompromise. Congenital CMV infection is transmitted through the placenta, especially during the first trimester and causes severe multi-systemic disease whereas perinatal infection is acquired during childbirth/ breastfeeding where the babies have maternal protective antibodies leading to much milder or asymptomatic infection. PJP is more common in infancy and presents as hypoxic pneumonia. CMV causes cyto-nucleomegaly and classic "owl's eye" inclusions on histology while PJP presents with characteristic fluffy "cotton ball" alveolar exudates.

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