COMPARISON OF PARASITE AND OVA IDENTIFICATION BY FORMALIN-ETHYL ACETATE CONCENTRATION AND AUTOMATIC METHOD (SCIENDOX 50®)

Abstract

Intestinal parasitic infections in Thailand remain a significant healthcare burden. To expose the presence of parasites, concentration technique is associated with higher detection rates of intestinal ova and parasites even in small numbers, when compared with the direct wet mount preparation. The most commonly used concentration technique is formalin-ethyl acetate (FECT), however this method is complex, time consuming, and posing hazard due to chemical reagents involved. The Sciendox 50® automatic machine is a newly developed machine processing feces using a sedimentation concentration technique similar to FECT. This study aims to evaluate the detection of ova and parasites of positive specimens including a variety of nematodes, trematodes, cestodes, and protozoa, of FECT and precipitate processed from Sciendox 50® machine. Kappa inter-rater reliability value yielded a perfect agreement (Kappa = 1). In conclusion, the Sciendox 50® machine is suitable for clinical use as a concentration technique device with additional benefits of higher safety to laboratory technicians and shorter processing times.