[Observation on the clinical symptoms and sporocyst excretion in human volunteers experimentally infected with Sarcocystis hominis].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the excretion of sporocysts and clinical manifestations in humans experimentally infected of Sarcocystis hominis.


METHODS
Three volunteers were infected by eating raw beef containing cysts of S. hominis. One ingested about 1,567 cysts in skeletal muscles of a naturally infected cattle; two volunteers each ingested about 14,740 cysts from an experimentally infected water buffalo meat. Fecal examination by zinc sulfate flotation method was conducted daily since d4 postinfection (pi).


RESULTS
Free sporocysts and oocysts were found in their faeces from d11-40, d12-23, d10-30 pi, and peaked at d18, d14, d14. All of them presented clinical symptoms such as abdominal pain, distension, watery diarrhea and eosinophilia 1 wk approximately 4 wk pi and were spontaneously cured within 29 days pi without taking any medicine.


CONCLUSIONS
All the experimentally infected persons had gastrointestinal symptoms and passed sporocysts and oocysts in faeces 10-12 days after infection and persisted for 11-29 days.
Chen
X
X
Biology Department of Yunnan University, Kunming 650091.
Zuo
Y
Y
Zuo
W
W
D000328:Adult; D005243:Feces / Q000469:parasitology*; D006801:Humans; D007411:Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D012523:Sarcocystosis / Q000175:diagnosis*