Study of toxoplasma infection in immuno-compromised patients

ABSTRACT

Toxoplasmosis is a protozoal disease, which is now of increasing incidence. It commonly appears as opportunistic infection in immunocompromised patients. Usually, it carries a latent or subclinical course of infection. In the present study we tried to evaluate toxoplasmosis in groups of patients who are known to be immunocompromised, i.e. of low immunity, hence liable to opportunistic infections. So, groups of patients with leprosy, pulmonary tuberculosis, bronchogenic carcinoma, sarcoidosis, collagen disease, diabetes mellitus, renal failure and advanced malignancy were chosen for the study in addition to a control group. To all of them we assessed cell-mediated immunity qualitatively by the migration inhibition test and testing for toxoplasmosis by the indirect haemagglutination test, in addition to routine laboratory investigations and specific investigations for selection of cases. A higher incidence of toxoplasmosis was found in most of the groups compared to the control group and to the general incidence in the community, which suggests a relation between cell-mediated suppression in the study groups and infection with toxoplasmosis