BACKGROUND Formula-fed (FF) infants often have harder stools and higher stool concentrations of fatty acid soaps compared to breastfed infants. Feeding high sn-2 palmitate or the prebiotic oligofructose (OF) may soften stools, reduce stool soaps, and decrease fecal calcium loss. METHODS We investigated the effect of high sn-2 palmitate alone and in combination with OF on stool palmitate soap,...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) is difficult to diagnose in children using molecular tests, because children have difficulty providing respiratory samples. Stool could replace sputum for diagnostic TB testing if adequate sample processing techniques were available. METHODS We developed a rapid method to process large volumes of stool for downstream testing by the Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) TB-detecti...

Present methods for DNA isolation of stool have various limitations such as the amount of stool used, the requirement of lavage fluids or the use of fresh stool. In this paper, a new method is described for the isolation of human nucleic acids from stool, which is independent from the moment of collection. Fecal samples as dry as possible were collected from 75 patients; two grams of stool were...

BACKGROUND Diarrhea is a major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in the developing countries. Rotavirus is a major cause of acute watery diarrhea. AIM This study aims at characterizing the prevalent rotavirus G-genotypes among under-five children presenting with acute watery diarrhea in Benin City, Nigeria. METHODOLOGY A total of 470 children <5 years presenting with diarrhea of <2...

OBJECTIVES To estimate seasonal proportions of patient visits due to acute gastrointestinal illness (GI), assess factors influencing physicians' stool sample requests, their understanding of laboratory testing protocols and adherence to provincial stool request guidelines in three British Columbia (BC) health regions. METHODS During a one-year period, eligible physicians were mailed four self...

Decision to test for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is usually made when patients have loose stools with Bristol stool score of ≥5. We aimed to assess the relationship between bacterial load of C. difficile and Bristol stool scale, as well as stool frequency in stool samples collected from patients infected with the organism. Samples were collected at baseline, during therapy, and at the...

For the assessment of fat malabsorption, the standard method of measuring faecal fat excretion using a 5 day stool collection has been compared with the alternative methods: stool microscopy, a lipid tolerance test and a continuous marker technique for the estimation of fat content on a single stool sample. The lipid test, using an emulsion of arachis oil (Prosparol), was less reliable than had...

BACKGROUND An accurate diagnosis of helminth infection is important to improve patient management. However, there is considerable intra- and inter-specimen variation of helminth egg counts in human feces. Homogenization of stool samples has been suggested to improve diagnostic accuracy, but there are no detailed investigations. Rapid disintegration of hookworm eggs constitutes another problem i...

We performed a retrospective review of screening parasitology examinations on a Cambodian refugee population served by an urban neighborhood health center. Five-hundred twenty of 1084 patients were examined for ova and parasites either by purged stool, which was examined immediately, or preserved stool, examined at a teaching hospital and proprietary laboratories. Overall, 335 (64 percent) of t...