External and intestinal parasites of pet dogs with reference to zoonotic toxocariasis

Examination of 3000 pet dogs over two years at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine revealed external and internal parasites. The external parasites were Rhipicephalus sanguineus, Ctenocephalus felis, Sarcoptes canis, and Sarcoptes scabiei. The internal parasites were Echinococcus granulosus, Dipylidium caninum, rare Heterophyes heterophyes, and Toxocara canis. Toxocara eggs were detected in 9.83%. The results were discussed with reference to zoonotic toxocariasis

Phylogenetic evidence for recombination in SAG5 locus in Toxoplasma gondii

The present study evaluated the hypothesis that genetic diversity in SAG5 genes was generated by recombination events. Three lines of evidence suggested that recombination occurred in SAG5 genes in T. gondii. The permutation test revealed strong signature of intragenic recombination, pairwise comparisons of nucleotide sequences of SAG5 genes revealed that SAG5A alleles have chimerical structures composed of segments derived through recombination events between different alleles, and phylogenetic trees reconstructed based on SAG5 sequences using neighbor-joining and maximum parsimony methods, showed statistically well-supported consensus clusters of T. gondii strains specific to each SAG5 gene. Topological discrepancies between trees based on the N-terminal variable domain and C-terminal conserved domain sequences, were observed, suggesting intragenic recombinetion between SAG5A and SAG5B/C genes. The results showed that recombination within SAG5 in T. gondii was a major evolutionary mechanism generating both allelic variation at SAGS locus and contributing to genotypic diversity and to emergence of new T. gondii variants, allowing them to evade the host immune defence mechanism

Mirazid alone or combined with paromomycin in treating Cryptosporidiosis parvum in immunocompetent hospitalized patients

Sixty cryptosporidiosis patients from Mansoura University Hospitals, 36 males and 24 females, with age from few months to ten years [mean age 6.1] were divided into three cross-matched groups of 20 patients each. All patients received the glutamine-based oral rehydration solution with 111 mmol/1 glutamine, 20 mg zinc acetate once a day and vitamin A supplementation [200,000 IU] once a day for 2 weeks. For cryptosporidiosis treatment, Gl received Mirazid [10mg /kg for 2 weeks], G2 received Paromomycin [500 mg qid for 2 weeks], and G3 received a combination of Mirazid [10mg/kg] and Paromomycin [500 mg] for two weeks. The result was assessed according to the scales: 0= no improvement, 1= symptoms began improvement [reduction of diarrhea frequency and stool volume, less abdominal pain, less nausea and vomiting], 2= diarrhea eradication, 3= weight gain, 4= oocyst counts reduction, 5= reduction in diarrhea and oocyst counts, 6= eradication of diarrhea and oocysts. G3 showed significantly higher difference than Gl and G2 in the 1[st] week [p=.036, 0.025 respectively], no significant difference in 2[nd] week, a significantly higher difference than in Gl [0.003], and G2 [0.006] in 3[rd] week, and a significantly higher difference than Gl [0.014], and G2 [0.01] in 4[th] week, but without significant differences in oocyst shedding in the 3 groups

Kinetics of eosinophilia and IGE production in experimental murine toxocariasis

Eosinophilia and immunoglobulin E [IgE] antibody are considered the first and important elements in host responses to helminth infection. Toxocara canis, which elicits prominent eosinophilia and IgE production in normal mice, may be useful in understanding the Kinetics of circulating peripheral blood eosinophils and IgE antibody during infection. The onset, magnitude and duration of peripheral blood eosinophilia and total IgE production after primary T. canis infection in female outbred albino mice was investigated. Mice were either sham inoculated [controls] or were orally infected with 1000 embryonated eggs of T. canis. Patterns in leucocytic changes include significant increase in total WBC count between weeks 6 and 13 post infection [PI] with a peak on week 8 PI. Mice showed eosinophilia between weeks 2 to 17 PI with a peak on week 7. The development of eosinophilia in T. canis-infected mice was accompanied by the release of prominent level of serum IgE between weeks 2 to 21 with a peak at week 6 PI. These findings showed that eosinophilia in T. canis infected outbred mice can be T-cell dependent

New concept of schistosomiasis lesions of urinary bladder versus development of bladder cancer

Schistosomiasis haematobium precancerous lesions of urinary bladder included group 1: preneo plastic non papillary [flat] lesions [reactive atypia, flat hyperplasia, keratinizing squamous metaplasia, glandular metaplasia, dysplasia, carcinoma in-situ [CIS]] and group 2 preneoplastic papillary lesions [typical papillary hyperplasia, atypical papillary hyperplasia, papilloma]. The present work studied the content of the schistosomiasis precancerous lesions of the urinary bladder using image analyzer, thereby shedding more light on the significance on the early diagnosis of the high risky group. A total of 140 previously diagnosed schistosomiasis urinary bladder lesions [124 precancerous and 16 cancers as controls] were stained by H and E, and Feulgen stain. The mean SPF was high in CIS [22.7], dysplasia [19.6] and low in atypia [7.91]. DNA ploidy, non-diploidy DNA was high in CIS [53%], papilloma, dysplasia and atypical papillary hyperplasia than flat hyperplasia, glandular metaplasia, keratinizing squamous metaplasia and typical papillary hyperplasia that were diploid indicating more tendency and aggressiveness of the first group to turn malignant than the second group

Biochemical parameters in chronic fascioliasis

Serum lipids, liver enzymes and total bile acids were measured in chronic Fasciola [cholestatic and non-cholestatic] patients. Variations in the biochemical parameters between infected and control groups were detected and typified by considerably higher serum triglycerides [TG, P < 0.001], alkaline phosphatase [ALP, P < 0.001] and total bile acids [TBA, P < 0.001] in the infected group. For cholestatic patients, TG, very low density lipoprotein [VLDL], aspartate aminotransferase [AST], alanine aminotransferase [ALT], gammaglutamyl transferase [GGT] and ALP were statistically higher [P < 0.001 for each comparison] and total cholesterol [TC]; low density lipoprotein[LDL] and high density lipoprotein [HDL], were statistically lower than non-cholestatic patients [P = 0.02, < 0.001, < 0.001 respectively]. No statistically significant differences were found for the TC, HDL, VLDL, ALT, AST and GGT between non-cholestatic patients and healthy controls