The value of Faecal Occult Blood Test in patients infected with intestinal parasites
Infections due to intestinal parasites are among the most prevalent infections in humans in developing countries. Faecal occult blood refers to blood in the faeces that is not visible to the naked eye and FOBT, as the name implies, is aimed to detect subtle blood loss in the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the colon .This study aimed to prove if there is a relation between FOB and intestinal parasites. Stool samples of 450 patients attending different out patient clinics in Ahmed Maher Teaching hospital, Egypt. Direct smear and The spontaneous faecal sedimentation method, Hoffman, Pons and Janer (HPJ) technique (HPJ) technique were used for the detection of the intestinal parasites. A commercially available immunological FOBT kit was used to detect FOB. The result showed that ( 47.1% ) of studied cases were infected by parasitic infection, 27(43.5)% of them were positive for FOB. Parasites detected were Schistosoma mansoni , Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, Hymenolpis nana , Ascaris lumbricoides , Anckylostoma duodenal, Entrobius vermicularis, Trichuris trichuria and strongloides stercoralis. 90 (42.8%) of the studied male cases and 122(50.8%) of female cases were positive for FOBT. Patients older than 30 years old, 48.9% of them were positive for FOBT. We concluded that this study demonstrated a slightly high prevalence positive FOBT , no association between intestinal parasitic infection or sex and positive FOBT ,although a significant relation was present between age and positive FOBT. We recommend that FOBT, due to its low-cost and ease of use, we advocate for the immediate integration of FOBT as a tool in as routine tests in clinics and hospitals especially for old aged patients ,further studies should be done for detection of correlation between other intestinal parasitic infection and FOB .