Peripheral Blood Smear: Hematologist Buddy to Catch Dangerous Budding: A Report of Two Cases

The incidence of nosocomial infections has been reported as 12%–18% in various studies from India, with bloodstream infections amounting 15%. Fungal pathogens have become a major cause of nosocomial bloodstream infections. Detection of fungemia by blood culture often requires 2 or 3 days of incubation. Few studies have reported the detection of Candida species (Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, and Candida parapsilosis) by review of routinely stained blood smears, often days earlier than diagnosis being possible by culture. These can be seen as round–oval extracellular as well as intracellular budding yeast organisms which show pink-magenta staining with periodic acid Schiff stain. We report here the detection of Candida spp. in the peripheral blood smear.