Diagnosis tools for Strongyloides stercoralis in AIDS patients

REPETTO SILVIA ANALÍA; ALBA SOTO CATALINA; RUYBAL PAULA; SOLANA MARIA ELISA; GONZALEZ CAPPA STELLA MARIS

Ouro Preto

Simposio; Co-infection: A Global Challenge for Disease Control.; 2015

Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology

S. stercoralis is an endemic nematode in Argentina. Larvae observation in stool samples and agar plate culture are conventional methods of diagnosis. However, low larvae excretion decreases the sensitivity of currents methods. To solve this, we set up a PCR that allows the detection of one larva/g stool with specificity. S. stercoralis is often detected among AIDS patients in endemic areas but severe clinical forms are rarely noted. Several reports indentified increased risk of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) in co-infected subjects after antiretroviral therapy.In a cohort of 71 strongyloidosis patients, 12 had HIV infection. Agar culture was positive in 6 of them requiring up to 3 samples to confirm diagnosis. All patients had a positive PCR in the first sample and in 6 of them S. stercoraliswas only detected by PCR.Five patients had asymptomatic infection, 5 referred gastrointestinal symptoms and 2 of them hyperinfection/diseminated strongyloidosis. All co-infected patients had eosinophilia (>450 eosinophils/mm3). Their eosinophil values wer significantly higher tahn those of patients without strongyloidosis (p