title: Thick stool smear wet mount examination: a new approach in stool microscopy.
abstract: Microscopic examination of a wet mount of the stool has been the standard practice for the laboratory diagnosis of intestinal parasitic infections. Here we describe a novel method of stool microscopy of 80 stool samples, 31 (38.75%) were positive by the new thick stool smear wet mount method, whereas the corresponding figure for the conventional method using lacto-phenol cotton blue was 16 (20%). The difference was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.04 by McNemar's test). The thick stool smear wet mount procedure promises to be superior to the direct wet mount method in the detection of the intestinal parasites.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research, Pondicherry 605 006, India. parijasc@vsnl.com
authors.forename: Subhash Chandra
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Parija
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.forename: Prasant
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Padhan
mesh_terms: D005243:Feces / Q000469:parasitology*; D006801:Humans; D007411:Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D010270:Parasite Egg Count / Q000379:methods*