Under diagnosis of intestinal schistosomiasis in a referral hospital, North Ethiopia

• Main Authors: Megbaru Alemu, Eyob Zigta, Awoke Derbie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2018-04-01
• Series: BMC Research Notes
• Subjects: Wet mount; Formol ether concentration; Kato-Katz; Mekelle; Ethiopia
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13104-018-3355-0
• ISSN: 1756-0500

Abstract Objective The present cross-sectional study was aimed at determining the magnitude of under diagnosis of intestinal schistosomiasis among patients requested for routine ova/parasite examination at Ayder referral hospital. Results A total of 280 stool samples were collected and only 5% of the patients were positive for ova of Schistosoma mansoni in the routine direct wet mount microscopy. On the other hand, 12.5% of the patients were positive for ova Schistosoma mansoni when the stool samples were processed by either Kato Kat or formol ether concentration techniques. Moderate test agreement (κ = 0.48) was recorded for wet mount. Formol-ether concentration (κ = 0.89) and Kato-Katz (κ = 0.92) showed excellent agreements with the ‘Gold’ standard. Direct wet mount technique exhibited the poorest sensitivity (35%) of detection of ova of Schistosoma mansoni. Hence, the Kato-Katz technique should be implemented in parallel with the direct wet mount microscopy for Schistosoma mansoni presumptive patients.