Entamoeba histolytica infection results from ingestion of the cyst of Entamoeba histolytica from fecally-contaminated food or water. Local invasion results in amebic dysentery and metastasis to amebic liver abscess. The diagnosis of intestinal amebiasis is ideally made using an E. histolytica-specific stool antigen detection test or using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The two major clinical syndromes of amebiasis are amebic colitis and amebic liver abscess. Together they are estimated to result in 50 million cases of colitis and liver abscess and 100,000 deaths worldwide each year. In developing countries, colonization with E. histolytica has been observed in 5% or more of poor children. Patients with amebic colitis typically present with a several week history of gradual onset of abdominal pain and tenderness, diarrhea and bloody stools (dysentery). The pathological lesions in the colon include ulceration of the intestinal epithelium and invasion into the lamina propria by trophozoites. Inflammation, with infiltrating neutrophils and mononuclear lymphocytes is pronounced, but inflammatory cells near the amebae are killed with pyknotic nuclei characteristic of apoptotic death. Amebic liver abscess is a rare form of the disease that is almost exclusively limited to adult males.