Fecal occult blood testing on Trichuris-infected primary school children in northeastern peninsular Malaysia.
Stool specimens of 104 primary schoolchildren (mean+/-SD age = 8.2+/-0.3 years) were examined for helminth eggs and for occult blood to investigate the possibility that trichuriasis causes occult intestinal bleeding in the absence of the overt Trichuris dysentery syndrome. A commercially available guaiac test was used to detect fecal occult blood. Sixty-one children had Trichuris infection, 11 of whom had heavy infections (> 10,000 eggs per gram of feces [epg]), and 53 had Ascaris infections. No hookworm infection was detected. Baseline screening yielded only one weakly positive occult blood test result in a child with a light (800 epg) Trichuris infection. Serial stool occult blood testing on the 11 subjects with heavy trichuriasis and 8 uninfected controls yielded a single weakly positive result in the control group. The results provide no evidence that trichuriasis predisposes to significant occult gastrointestinal bleeding in children in the absence of the dysenteric syndrome.
Raj
S M
SM
Department of Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kota Bharu, Kelantan.
D000818:Animals; D001196:Ascariasis / Q000453:epidemiology; D017164:Ascaris lumbricoides; D002648:Child; D005243:Feces / Q000469:parasitology; D005260:Female; D006471:Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009780:Occult Blood; D010270:Parasite Egg Count; D015995:Prevalence; D014257:Trichuriasis / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D014258:Trichuris / Q000302:isolation & purification