Aprimoramento da detecção de ovos de Schistosoma mansoni em sedimento produzido pelo metodo Helmintex®

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is endemic in 74 countries, affecting more than 200 million people. In Brazil, Schistosoma mansoni is the only causative agent of schistosomiasis, which affects 19 states. Control measurements and effective treatment can result in a decrease of the parasitic load of individuals with the severe form. In this matter, when diagnostic methods with adequate sensitivity for monitoring are not used, those measurements may difficult diagnosis, favoring the persistence of the infection for long periods, as well as the environmental contamination and consequently exposure to local population reinfection. In these areas, or where there was recent introduction of S. mansoni, classic parasitological methods to find eggs in feces are not efficient. Although immunological and molecular techniques are currently considered as main diagnostic tools, parasitological methods re necessary to confirm the infection. Helmintex™ has been recently described as highly sensitive diagnostic method that isolates eggs from 30 gram of feces through the interaction of eggs with paramagnetic microspheres in a magnetic field. Despite the sensibility, its limitation lies in the number of slides to be analyzed, making the process time consuming and not applicable for clinical routine. In this context, this work opens perspectives for the use of new tools in an attempt to optimize S. mansoni egg detection in the last step of the Helmintex™, using chemiluminescence, and ninhydrin staining. Another alternative tested was the ninhydrin staining. Helmintex™ sediments containing S. mansoni eggs were fixed with 70% ethanol and deposited on Whatman Grade 541 filter paper, immersed in a solution of ninhydrin:ethanol (30: 70 %) for later eggs visualization at the optical microscope. Reading time for each filter was counted and registered. Ideal conditions for incubation with ninhydrin were established in 15 minutes at 24 °C. Reading time for each sample was, in general, of 23 minutes. When compared to the original Helmintex™ method, the use of ninhydrin decreased the reading time of the final sediment in, at least, 450 minutes. The results of this work showed that the implementation of new tools in existent diagnostic methods may contribute to a better performance of sensitive techniques with limited application in field studies, and open perspectives to new studies that aim to investigate and to optimize primordial steps of concentration methods.