A cross-sectional study was performed in February 2001 to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors of Blastocystis hominis infection in army personnel who resided in an army base in Chonburi, Thailand. A total of 904 army personnel were enrolled in this study. Short-term in vitro cultivation was used to detect B. hominis in stool samples. In this population, B. hominis was the parasite most fre...

Blastocystis hominisis a common parasite implicated in a variety of intestinal problems. Oral-faecal route of transmission has been postulated but the cystic phase which is presumably the infective stage of the parasite, has only recently been described using electron microscope. However, little information is available on the light microscopic morphology of the cyst. There are two possible rea...

INTRODUCTION The present study was carried out from March to May 2008, with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of different techniques for diagnosing Blastocystis hominis in a sample of the population attended at the Biomedicine Laboratory of Feevale University, Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul. METHODS On hundred feces samples from children and adults were evaluated. After collection, t...

Blastocystis presents a great challenge to parasitologists and clinicians to determine whether it is truly an enteropathogen or not and treatment is required if it is observed in symptomatic patients, because even without any treatment patient recovery and improvement has been noted. Blastocystis hominis is the most common protozoan parasite found in patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and ...

Blastocystis hominis has long been described as a non pathogenic protozoan parasite until recently when claims have been made that it can result in pathogenic conditions. Of the 729 stool samples (614 from survey and 115 from pediatric wards) examined, 18.1% of them were found to be positive for one or more intestinal protozoan cyst. The commonest was Giardia intestinalis (8.4%) Followed by Ent...

The history of B. hominis is unique. Few infectious agents have provoked the many misconceptions that plague this enigmatic parasitic ameba. Conflicting descriptions of its nature and pathogenesis have continued throughout the 20th century. As seen by the greatly expanded number of reports in recent years, B. hominis is now a major subject of study, particularly for evidence of disease causatio...

Previous studies by the authors have shown that the protozoan parasite Blastocystis hominis succumbed to a cytotoxic monoclonal antibody with a number of cellular and biochemical features characteristic of apoptosis in higher eukaryotes. The present study reports that apoptosis-like features are also observed in growing cultures of axenic B. hominis upon exposure to metronidazole, a drug common...