Background: Infection with intestinal parasites regard as the most important causative agent for diarrhea, and Giardia lamblia, Entamoeba histolytica and Cryptosporidium parvum are three of the most common intestinal protozoan and the most important diarrhea-causing protozoa. Objectives: To assess the prevalence of E. histolytica, G.lamblia and Cryptosporidium spp. in fecal samples of children with diarrhea and to compare the test performance characteristics of microscopy, ELISA and multiplex real time PCR to an expanded gold standard in the diagnosis of protozoa parasites in fecal samples of children. Materials and Methods: This study included 100 patients who were examined by pediatric physician and attend to the parasitology laboratory in AL-Imamin AL-Kadhimin Medical City, suffering from gastrointestinal complaints with diarrhea. General fecal samples were taken from them during the period from May 2014 to February 2015. The age range was 1month to 18 years. All stool samples were laboratory diagnosed by microscopy, Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and multiplex real time PCR.
Results: We examined 100 child with diarrhea, Most common parasite was G. lambila (42%), overall best results were obtained by multiplex real-time PCR in detection of G. lamblia, E. histolytica and C. parvum. Statistically, the difference was significant between multiplex RT-PCR with microscopic and ELISA in detection of these protozoa. Conclusion: Intestinal parasitic infection is common among diarrheal children and G. lamblia is the main parasite that causes infections in children, and there were a significance variants among diagnostic methods and detection of parasitic infections. The best results obtained by a multiplex RT-PCR for detection and differentiation between the most important causative agent of diarrhea.
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3/2015
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