Blastocystis is one of the most common gut parasites found in the intestinal tract of humans and animals. Its' association with IBS is controversial, possibly as a result of irregular shedding of parasites in stool and variation in stool detection. We aimed to screen for Blastocystis in colonic stool aspirate samples in adult patients with and without IBS undergoing colonoscopy for various indi...

BACKGROUND In veterinary parasitology samples are often pooled for a rapid assessment of infection intensity and drug efficacy. Currently, studies evaluating this strategy in large-scale drug administration programs to control human soil-transmitted helminths (STHs; Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and hookworm), are absent. Therefore, we developed and evaluated a pooling strategy to ...

The present study was conducted to compare two stool antigen detection kits with PCR for the diagnosis of Entamoeba histolytica infections by using fecal specimens submitted to the Department of Microbiology at St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, and the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide, Australia. A total of 279 stool samples containing the E complex (E. histolytica, Entamoeba...

BACKGROUND We evaluated the frequency of recovery of pathogens from children with diarrhea who presented to a pediatric emergency department and characterized the associated illnesses, to develop guidelines for performing a bacterial enteric culture. METHODS We conducted a prospective cohort study of all patients with diarrhea who presented to a large regional pediatric emergency department d...

cryptosporidium is an apicomplexan parasite of humans and a wild range of domestic as well as wild animals. an 833-bp fragment of the 18s-rrna gene was used to identify cryptosporidium spp. recovered from children and adult patients, in human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) positive and negative patients in iran. initial identification of cryptosporidiosis was carried out by ziehl-neelsen acid-fas...

Background: Cyclospora cayetanensis is a coccidian parasite recently recognized and characterized that cause enteritic infection worldwide. Endemic in tropical and subtropical countries where asymptomatic carriage is common, this parasite is also frequently associated with foodborne and waterborne outbreaks and reported from travellers in industrialized countries. Poorly characterized by routin...

BACKGROUND One of the major health problems among HIV seropositive patients is superimposed infection due to the defect of immunity. Furthermore, intestinal parasite infection, which is also one of the basic health problems in tropical region, is common in these patients. In this study, a cross sectional study to document the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection in Thai HIV-infected pat...

More sensitive methodologies are necessary to improve strongyloidiasis diagnosis. This study compared the sensitivities of the McMaster modified technique and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays, both performed in faecal samples. Lewis rats were subcutaneously infected with 4,000, 400 or 40 infective third-stage larvae, considered as high, moderate or low infection, respectively. Seven days ...

Background: Giardia lamblia is a common intestinal parasite associated with social or personal problems. Giardiasis is distributed all over the world; however, the infection is more prevalent in developing countries. Metronidazole is now considered as a drug of choice for giardiasis treatment. The increasing number of reports of refractory cases as well as side effects of this ...

Background & Aims: Giardiasis is one of the human parasitic diseases caused by a flagellate protozoan named Giardia duodenalis (G.lamblia). Giardia is one of the most common organisms causing diarrhea in human and also a common gastrointestinal parasite in vertebrates. Methods: A total of 352 stool samples were collected from patients infected with giardiasis referred to health centers in K...