Abstract
The soil transmitted whipworm, Trichuris trichiura affects about half a billion people globally. Diagnosis is based on identification of characteristic lemon-shaped eggs in stool samples. Occasionally large Trichuris eggs have been reported and have been ascribed to variation within T. trichiura or zoonotic infection with T. vulpis from dogs. We observed that the egg size profile changed markedly after anthelmintic treatment, and remained so, in a human individual self-infected with T. trichiura. The large eggs were detected with two standard diagnostic methods, Kato-Katz thick smear and salt-flotation (McMaster) method. It is therefore important to bear in mind that the morphology of parasite eggs may vary, e.g. in response to previous drug treatment. Large Trichuris eggs in human stool samples should not be diagnosed as T. vulpis infection without confirmation by other means.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 105347 |
| Journal | Acta Tropica |
| Volume | 204 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| ISSN | 0001-706X |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2020 |
Keywords
- Anthelmintic treatment
- Diagnostics
- Egg size
- Kato Katz
- McMaster
- Trichuris trichiura