ABSTRACT
The present study evaluated the diagnostic performance of a modification of the formol ethyl acetate concentration technique, with the addition of 25% acetic acid as compared with formol ethyl acetate concentration technique (FEA) and fecal parasite concentrator kit Fresh fecal material, free of ova and parasites, was pooled in a ratio of 1:4 with 10% buffered formalin to prepare a standardized specimen. Sufficient volumes of formalin-fixed suspension of Giardia lamblia cysts, Entamoeba histolytica cysts, Cryptosporidium oocysts; Ascaris lumbricoides ova, Necator americanus, Taenia spp. and Hymenolepis nana were used to seed individually 3-ml portions of the fecal specimen. The 3-ml samples were split in three parts, one processed by FEA, a second part with FPC and the third part by the modified FAEA; six smears from each sediment were examined by light microscopy. FAEA technique gave the clearest sediments and the highest numbers in most of the parasites. FAEA resulted in a higher percenttage of H. nana, Taenia spp., N. americanus, and G. lamblia per one ml of stool compared with FEA method. When compared with FPC, the same results were achieved in addition to E. histolytica.
Subject(s)
Feces/parasitology , Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic/diagnosis , Parasite Egg Count/methods , Animals , Ascaris lumbricoides/isolation & purification , Cryptosporidium/isolation & purification , Entamoeba histolytica/isolation & purification , Giardia lamblia/isolation & purification , Humans , Hymenolepis/isolation & purification , Necator americanus/isolation & purification , Parasite Egg Count/standards , Sensitivity and Specificity , Specimen HandlingABSTRACT
The effects of two antifungal compounds, the azole itraconazole and the allylamine terbinafine, on Leishmania major infections in mice are reported. Sixty BALB/c mice were each inoculated subcutaneously with metacyclic promastigotes of L. major at the base of the tail. From 4 weeks post-inoculation, 40 of the mice were treated for 4 weeks (20 with itraconazole and 20 with terbinafine) and the rest were left untreated. Lesion sizes were estimated weekly for 10 weeks post-infection. Both drugs appeared effective in treating the cutaneous lesions but response to itraconazole was faster and, at the end of the experiment, the mean size of the lesions on the mice treated with itraconazole was smaller than that of the lesions on the terbinafine-treated mice.
Subject(s)
Antifungal Agents/therapeutic use , Itraconazole/therapeutic use , Leishmania major/drug effects , Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous/drug therapy , Naphthalenes/therapeutic use , Animals , Mice , Mice, Inbred BALB C , Terbinafine , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
Full text is available as a scanned copy of the original print version.
ABSTRACT
Promastigotes of Leishmania braziliensis, L. donovani, L. major and L. mexicana recently derived from tissue amastigotes were cultured in Schneider's Drosophila medium supplemented with 20% (v/v) heat-inactivated foetal calf serum and 25 micrograms gentamicin sulfate/ml at pH 5.5. These cultures produced more metacyclic promastigotes in their stationary-phase populations than others cultured at pH 7.0. Metacyclic promastigotes possessed a short (< or = 8 microns) and narrow (< or = 1.5 microns) cell body with a flagellum twice or more the length of the cell body. Promastigotes from acidic cultures were more resistant to complement-mediated lysis and more infective in vivo than those grown at neutral pH. These results demonstrate that induction of metacyclogenesis by acidic pH is a response conserved across a variety of species of Leishmania.
