Idiopathic inflammatory myopathy: Interrater variability in muscle biopsy reading.

Objective: To determine interrater variability in diagnosing individual muscle biopsy abnormalities and diagnosis.

Methods: We developed a scoring tool to analyze consensus in muscle biopsy reading of an ad hoc workgroup of international experts. Twenty-four samples from patients with suspected idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM) were randomly selected, providing sections that were stained with standard histologic and immunohistochemical methods.

Diversity of metazoan parasites of the Mozambique tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus (Peters, 1852), as indicators of pollution in the Limpopo and Olifants River systems.

Aquatic systems are affected by a variety of anthropogenic activities that decrease water quality through the introduction of organic and inorganic pollutants. To investigate the relationship between fish parasite communities and water quality, metazoan parasites were examined in 140 specimens of the Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) sampled in three lakes in the Limpopo Province, namely the Luphephe-Nwanedi Dams (regarded as unpolluted), the Flag Boshielo Dam (regarded as moderately polluted) and a return water dam on a mine site (regarded as polluted). The monogenean parasites Cichlidogyrus halli, digenean larval stages of Clinostomum and Diplostomum spp.

Schistobrachia jordaanae n. sp. (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Lernaeopodidae) from gill filaments of a diamond ray (Gymnura natalensis) captured in the Indian Ocean and a key to species of Schistobrachia, Dendrapta, and Brianella.

Schistobrachia jordaanae n. sp. (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Lernaeopodidae) is described from adult female specimens collected from gill filaments of a diamond ray Gymnura natalensis (Gilchrist and Thompson, 1911) captured in the Indian Ocean off the South African coast.