A Comparison Of The Efficiency Of The Three Egg Count Techniques

Abstract

Usually egg count technique has been employed to know the intensity of infestation of human intestinal helminths and to elucidate the effects of anthelmintics. Comparing the three egg count methods-Stoll's egg dilution method, Beaver's direct smear method and FHK counting board method-the authors reached the following results: 1) As the result of application of the three methods to 75 Ascaris egg positives and 95 Trichocephalus egg positives, in the case of Ascaris eggs, the egg detection rate was 99 per cent by Stoll's method, 97 per cent by Beaver's method and was lowest by FHK method at 79 %. Meanwhile, in Trichocephalus eggs, Stoll's method revealed 92 %, Beaver's method 95 %, and FHK method 95 %, there being no noticeable differences. 2) With regard to EPG, in counting Ascaris eggs, Stoll's method showed a value closest to the actual number of eggs, and the value revealed by FHK method was smaller than the actual number. 3) As the result of comparing the coefficiencies of variation of the three egg counting methods, both in Ascaris eggs and Trichocephalus eggs, the FHK method showed the smallest, followed by Stoll's method and Beaver's method.