title: Diagnosis of urinary schistosomiasis: a novel approach to compare bladder pathology measured by ultrasound and three methods for hematuria detection.
abstract: We aggregated published data from field studies documenting prevalence of Schistosoma haematobium infection and bladder pathology determined by ultrasonography or hematuria detected by reagent strip, questionnaire, or visual examination. A mathematical expression was used to describe the associations between prevalence of pathology/morbidity and infection. This allows for indirect comparison of these methods, which are rarely used simultaneously. All four methods showed a similar, marked association with infection. Surprisingly, ultrasound revealed higher prevalences of pathology in schools than in communities with the same prevalence of infection, implying a need for age-related cut-off values. Reagent strip testing yielded a higher prevalence than questionnaire, which in turn was higher than by visual examination. After correction for morbidity due to other causes, a consistent ratio in prevalence of hematuria of 3:2:1 resulted for the three respective methods. The simple questionnaire approach is not markedly inferior to the other techniques, making it the best option for field use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Center, University Medical Center Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. vanderwerfm@kncvtbc.nl
authors.forename: Marieke J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van der Werf
authors.forename: Sake J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: de Vlas
mesh_terms: D006417:Hematuria / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D009017:Morbidity; D015995:Prevalence; D012553:Schistosomiasis haematobia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000453:epidemiology; D014463:Ultrasonography; D001743:Urinary Bladder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014556:Urine / Q000469:parasitology