A total of 210
patients with gastrointestinal troubles, of both
sex and a mean age of 32 +/- 6.1 years, selected from the
outpatient 's clinics of Al-Azhar
University Hospitals . 115 [54.76%] had
dysentery , 95 [45.23%] did not have
dysentery , 15 [14%] suffered
flatulence , 20 [9.52%] had epi-gastric
pain , 19 [9.05%] had vague
abdominal pain , 5
vomiting [5.2%] and 10 [4.9%] had
fever . Two symptoms were in 29 [13.81%]
patients and three symptoms in 12 [5.7 1%]. Of the 210
patients , 20 [9.9%] had helminthes
infection , 121 [57.6%] had intestinal protozoa and 69 [32.9%] had no
parasitic infection . Of these
parasite -free
patients , 16 had
Shigella sp. and nine had
Campylobacter sp. Of the
patients with intestinal protozoa, 34 [16.2%] had E. histolytica/ dispar by stool examination of stained smears. By using
ELISA for
detection of E. histolytica adhesion in stool samples of 115 with
diarrhea only 18 had true E. histolytica
infection and of 3 without
diarrhea only one had E. histolytica
infection . Mean-while,
ELISA did not cross-reacted E. coli,
Giardia lamblia ,
Cryptosporidium parvum ,
Endolimax nana or
Blastocystis hominis . So,
ELISA for
detection of E. histoltica adhesion in stool samples was more specific than
microscopy and safe direction to the E. histolytica
treatment . Apart from intestinal protozoan and
bacteria , helminthes were seen in stool
analysis . These were
Schistosoma mansoni [0.95%],
Capillaria sp. [0.95%],
Enterobius vermicularis [1.90%] macroscopically,
Hymenolepis nana [4.3%] and
Ascaris lumbricoides [1.43%]