Vet World Vol.14 April-2021 Article-9
Research Article
Veterinary World, 14(4): 873-877
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2021.873-877
Comparison between five coprological methods for the diagnosis of Balantidium coli cysts in fecal samples from pigs
2. Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Health, Industrial University of Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia.
Background and Aim: Balantidium coli is a protozoan that can infect humans and non-human primates, being the domestic pigs the animals most affected by this parasite. This study aimed to compare the performance of five coprological methods for diagnosis of Balantidium coli cysts in fecal samples from pigs.
Materials and Methods: From September to December 2019, 558 fecal samples were collected from the rectum of backyard pigs in the Bucaramanga metropolitan area, Colombia. The average age of the sampled animals was 3-4 months. Fecal samples collected were tested using the following coprological techniques: Direct examination with Lugol's iodine solution, buffered saline, centrifugation/flotation and McMaster techniques, and Ziehl–Neelsen method.
Results: The results indicate that B. coli cysts were diagnosed most frequently through direct examination with Lugol's iodine solution (52.7% of the samples) followed by direct examination with a buffered saline solution (37.6%). Moderate concordance (k=0.41; p<0.05) was determined between direct method with Lugol's iodine and buffered saline solution, McMaster and buffered saline (k=0.35; p<0.05), and centrifugation/flotation and buffered saline (k=0.28; p<0.05) showed a fair degree of concordance. The rest of the comparisons were classified as poor. The flotation techniques (centrifugation/ flotation and McMaster) did not show good recovery of cysts.
Conclusion: It is concluded that the most efficient method for diagnosing this parasitosis was to an association between direct examination with Lugol's iodine solution and buffered saline. Keywords: Balantidium, parasite, pigs, protozoan.
Keywords: Balantidium, parasite, pigs, protozoan.
How to cite this article: Pinilla JC, Pinilla AI, Florez AA (2021) Comparison between five coprological methods for the diagnosis of Balantidium coli cysts in fecal samples from pigs, Veterinary World, 14(4): 873-877.
Received: 24-07-2020 Accepted: 23-02-2021 Published online: 12-04-2021
Corresponding author: Juan Carlos Pinilla E-mail: jcpinilla65@gmail.com
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.873-877
Copyright: Pinilla, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.