BACKGROUND Steatorrhea following major pancreatic resection can be difficult to control, requiring high doses of pancreatic enzyme supplements. The aim of this study was to demonstrate equivalent efficacy of high-dose and standard-dose pancreatin in treating steatorrhea after pancreatectomy. METHODS A randomized, double-blind, crossover study was conducted with a 2-wk run-in period for stabil...

BACKGROUND Strongyloidiasis is mostly an asymptomatic infection and diagnosis of latent infections is difficult due to limitations of current parasitological and serological methods. This study was conducted to set up a PCR-based method for molecular diagnosis of Strongyloides stercoralis infection by detection of copro-DNA in stool samples. METHODS A total of 782 fresh stool samples were col...

BACKGROUND To test the hypothesis that daily supplementation of zinc has any effect on clinical course of acute diarrhea, i.e. frequency of stool, on stool amount and duration of acute diarrhea. METHODS In a randomized double blind placebo controlled trial, 117 children aged 6 months to 59 months in a medical college hospital, with acute diarrhea of less than 14 days were assigned by permuted...

CONTEXT The stool softener docusate is widely used in the management of constipation in hospice patients. There is little experimental evidence to support this practice, and no randomized trials have been conducted in the hospice setting. OBJECTIVES To assess the efficacy of docusate in hospice patients. METHODS This was a 10-day, prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled tr...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy and the second most common cause of cancer death worldwide. Early detection of CRC can improve patient survival rates; thus, the identification of noninvasive diagnostic markers is urgently needed. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have extensive potential to diagnose several diseases, including cancer. In this study, we compared the expression patte...

OBJECTIVE Following the isolation of a Marseillevirus from the stool of a healthy young Senegalese and a Mimivirus from a Tunisian patient with pneumonia, we attempted to isolate other giant viruses of amoebae from a large human stool collection. METHODS During the period 2010-2011, a total of 1,605 stool samples, including 115 from Tunisian patients with pneumonia, were cultured on amoebae. ...