Background: The traditional basis of diagnosis is identification of Giardia
lamblia trophozoites or cysts in the stool of infected patients. Recently the
advent of more objective techniques like antigen detection methods has led to
an increase in their use versus those that rely on subjective microscopic examination
of fecal specimens for Giardia cysts may facilitate diagnosis of G.
lamblia in stool specimens.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out from Oct 2015 to Feb
2016 on patients admitted to Benha University Hospitals (Benha, Egypt) and
outpatients of Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (TBRI) (Giza, Egypt). Purified
G. lamblia cysts antigen was prepared by two-phase sucrose gradient technique.
Polyclonal antibody against purified G. lamblia cysts antigen was prepared
and labeled with horseradish peroxidase and Nano Magnetic Beads
(NMB) to be used as detecting antibody. A total of 72 stool samples, 32 samples
positive for giardiasis, 20 samples positive for other parasitic infections in
addition to 20 negative samples were examined using dot ELISA and NMB
dot-ELISA.
Results: The sensitivity of the traditional dot-ELISA was 81.3 % and it increased
by using the NMB-dot-ELISA to be 96.9% in stool samples. Specificity
of both techniques was 97.5%.
Conclusion: Diagnosis of G. lamblia by NMB-Dot-ELISA technique is sensitive,
specific, rapid and easy to perform and interpret. In this study, using the
nano-magnetic beads increased the sensitivity of the applied technique.