Diagnosis of Microsporidia and Cryptosporidium spp.in Childhood Cancer

The present work constitutes a prospective study on children suffering from diarrhoea; including 60 paediatric cancer patients and 60 paediatric noncancerous patients as a control group. All faecal specimens were examined parasitologically using the AFT, MTS and MZN staining techniques. Among 60 diarrhoeic paediatric cancer cases, 16 (26.7%) were positive for microsporidia by using both AFT and MTS staining techniques. On the other hand, Cryptosporidium were detected in 6 (10.0%) of cases using both AFT and MZN staining techniques. The agreement between the AFT technique with the MTS and MZN staining technique was statistically highly significant by Kappa statistics (K = 0.66, P < 0.001).