Comparison between two methods for diagnosis of Trichinellosis: trichinoscopy and artificial digestion

ABSTRACT

Two direct methods for the diagnosis of trichinellosis were compared trichinoscopy and artificial digestion. Muscles from 17 wistar rats, orally infected with 500 Trichinela spiralis encysted larvae were examined. From each of the following muscles diaphragm, tongue, masseters, intercostals, triceps brachialis and cuadriceps femoralis, 648,440 larvae from 1 g samples were recovered. The linear correlation between trichinoscopy and artificial digestion was very high and significant (r=0.94,p<0.0001), showing that both methods for the detection of muscular larvae did not differ significantly. In both methods, significant differences were found in the distribution of larvae per gramme of muscle.