Charcot-Leyden crystals are microscopic crystals found in people who have allergic diseases such as asthma or parasitic infections such as parasitic pneumonia or ascariasis.

The Charcot-Leyden crystal protein interacts with eosinophil lysophospholipases.^[1]

Contents 1 Appearance 2 Clinical significance 3 History 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Appearance

They vary in size and may be as large as 50 µm in length. Charcot-Leyden crystals are slender and pointed at both ends, consisting of a pair of hexagonal pyramids joined at their bases. Normally colorless, they are stained purplish-red by trichrome. They consist of lysophospholipase, an enzyme synthesized by eosinophils, and are produced from the breakdown of these cells.

[edit] Clinical significance

They are indicative of a disease involving eosinophilic inflammation or proliferation, such as is found in allergic reactions and parasitic infections.

Charcot-Leyden crystals are often seen pathologically in patients with bronchial asthma.

[edit] History

Friedrich Albert von Zenker was the first to notice these crystals, doing so in 1851, after which they were described jointly by Jean-Martin Charcot and Charles-Philippe Robin in 1853,^[2] then in 1872 by Ernst Viktor von Leyden.^[3]

[edit] See also

• Curschmann's Spirals

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• http://www.som.tulane.edu/classware/pathology/medical_pathology/New_for_98/Lung_Review/Lung-26.html
• http://www.udel.edu/medtech/dlehman/medt372/Ch-lyd.html

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