Detection and prevalence of common intestinal parasites in stool samples at a tertiary care hospital in Hyderabad Karnataka region: A retrospective study

Abstract

Parasitic infections are globally widespread with their prevalence differing with the level of sanitation, associated with poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding and tropical climate. The common parasitic forms identified in stool of patients include trophozoites and cysts of protozoans like Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, etc. The present study was undertaken to know the prevalence of common parasites in stool samples in our tertiary care hospital. The records of 10,336 stool samples from both outpatient and inpatient departments were examined which were received for testing in our microbiology laboratory from the period of January 2016 to January 2018. Out of these samples, 9904 were finally included for the present retrospective study. Both hanging drop and routine examination was done for 976 (9.85%) samples and routine examination was done for 8928 (90.14%) samples. Stool samples collected were examined grossly and microscopically for presence of any infectious parasites. The most common parasite detected in the stool samples was Entamoeba histolytica with higher percentage of cases seen in females (60%) and age group of 0-10 years (33.33%). The pathogenic parasites detected were Entamoeba histolytica cysts and trophozoites in 720 samples (7.26%) followed by trophozoites and cysts of Giardia lamblia in 128 samples (1.29%), ova of Ascaris lumbricoides in 14 samples (0.14%) and ova of Taenia in 2 samples (0.02%). This study demonstrates that intestinal parasite infections are a public health problem in our study population. Poor sanitation and inadequate environmental conditions constituted the main determining factors that predisposed this population to intestinal parasites.