Thick Stool Smear Wet Mount Examination: A New Approach in Stool Microscopy

Abstract

Microscopic examination of a wet mount of the stool has been the standard practice for the laboratory diagnosis of intestinal parasitic infections. Here we describe a novel method of stool microscopy of 80 stool samples, 31 (38.75%) were positive by the new thick stool smear wet mount method, whereas the corresponding figure for the conventional method using lacto-phenol cotton blue was 16 (20%). The difference was found to be statistically significant (P<0.04 by McNemar's test). The thick stool smear wet mount procedure promises to be superior to the direct wet mount method in the detection of the intestinal parasites.