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:Prototheca species are achlorophyllic algae that are a rare cause of infection in humans. It most commonly causes localized cutaneous disease and rarely disseminated infection. Immunocompromised patients have the highest risk of disseminated protothecosis, with a higher mortality rate than localized cutaneous infections. At the species level, infections caused by Prototheca zopfii are reported less frequently than those caused by Prototheca wickerhamii. The diagnosis can be made using histopathology, culture, and molecular testing. There is no definitive evidence for an effective treatment, which currently consists of antifungals (primarily amphotericin B). With only a handful of cases of disseminated protothecosis reported worldwide that are caused by P. zopfii, we herein present an additional case of a postbone marrow transplant patient in the Midwest of the United States.

Upfront interval sectioning (cutting unstained slides between H&E levels) is used at our institution for biopsies at all sites except the gastrointestinal tract. Very limited data exists in the literature for the need for interval sectioning, and we are aware of no data at all for the head and neck. Biopsies from the larynx, oral cavity, pharynx, and sinonasal tract at our institution have had 5 levels cut. Levels 1, 3, and 5 or levels 2 and 5 had been stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), depending on the subsite, and the remaining slides saved for possible later use. We retrospectively evaluated the use of unstained slides at these sites for clinical utility and efficiency by analyzing 3 years of cases from 1/1/2014 to 12/30/2016. A cutoff of 10% utilization was considered justification for continued upfront unstained slide cutting. We collected 706 larynx, 572 oral cavity, 184 pharynx, and 85 sinonasal tract biopsies over 3 years. The overall rate of unstained slide usage was 18.2%. Usage rates were significantly different by site: 7.8% (55/706) for larynx, 21.9% (125/572) for oral cavity, 30.6% (26/85) for sinonasal tract and 40.8% (75/184) for pharynx (p < 0.0001). The most common stain ordered in the pharynx was p16 immunohistochemistry (59.7%), but it was Grocott methenamine silver staining in the larynx (74.5%), oral cavity (70.4%), and sinonasal tract (35.1%). Usage of unstained slides was lowest for the larynx, and review of the biopsies with unstained slides utilized showed that the lesion was present on the 3rd H&E level in all cases. Removing this practice would have translated to saving 1,378 unstained slides. Upfront interval sectioning makes practical sense for biopsies from most sites in the head and neck, especially the pharynx, but our data suggests it can reasonably be forgone at least for biopsies of the larynx.

A 30-year-old African American woman with a history of interstitial lung disease presented with bilaterally symmetrical, nonpruritic, scaling and fissuring, hyperpigmented, lichenified plaques on her hands and feet. She reported occasional erythema of her face, intermittent erythema, and irritation of her eyes but denied any muscle weakness. A biopsy of the plantar first toe showed hyperkeratosis, striking alternating ortho-and parakeratosis with underlying apoptotic bodies. There was psoriasiform acanthosis without suprapapillary thinning, numerous apoptotic keratinocytes in all layers of the epidermis extending into the corneum that were out of proportion with the minimal interface inflammation. Colloidal iron and Alcian blue stains showed increased dermal mucin deposition. Given the clinical, histopathological, and supportive serological findings (positive anti-KU and anti-SSA), a diagnosis of clinically amyopathic dermatomyositis with mechanic hand/hiker feet (MH/HF) was rendered. The pseudocheckerboard pattern of MH/HF has been previously reported in only 4 patients. The most frequent associations with MH/HF are dermatomyositis and antisynthetase syndrome; however, our patient was negative for antiaminoacyl transfer RNA synthetase antibodies, a required criterion to diagnose antisynthetase syndrome. It is imperative to recognize MH/HF clinically and histopathologically because it may be an early indication of developing dermatomyositis or other connective tissue diseases, which would guide further workup and screening for systemic involvement of the disease, including interstitial lung disease.

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