cowdry bodies

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Cowdry bodies are eosinophilic or basophilic neuronal intranuclear inclusions composed of nucleic acid and protein, this cytopathic changes are considered a hallmark of viral infection..

Pathology

Cowdry bodies are in fact fixation artifacts and not directly the result of the intracellular virus. There are two types of intranuclear Cowdry bodies:

Type A: acidophilic material of droplet-like masses surrounded by clear halos within nuclei., seen in gingivostomatitis and conjunctivitis caused by Herpes simplex virus and also chicken pox caused by varicella zoster.

Type B intranuclear eosinophilic without any nuclear change, seen in infection with poliovirus and CMV.

History.

Cowdry bodies are named after the Canadian-American biologist Edmund Vincent Cowdry Ph.D., 1888-1975