Table 3.
Species-specific sensitivity and efficiency of direct techniques in detection of intestinal parasites
| Techniques | Hymenolepis nana | Enterobius vermicularis | Giardia lamblia | Entamoeba coli | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sensitivity | Efficiency | κ index | Sensitivity | Efficiency | κ index | Sensitivity | Efficiency | κ index | Sensitivity | Efficiency | κ index | |
| Direct smear | 85% | 97% | 0.901 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 | 96.2% | 99% | 0.974 | 87.5% | 99% | 0.928 |
| Formol-ether sedimentation | 95 | 99 | 0.968 | 66.6 | 99 | 0.795 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 |
| Centrifugal flotation | 95 | 99 | 0.968 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 87.5 | 99 | 0.928 |
| Kato-Katz | 90 | 98 | 0.935 | 66.6 | 99 | 0.795 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Mini-FLOTAC-ZnSO4 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 84.6 | 96 | 0.891 | 75.0 | 98 | 0.847 |
| Mini-FLOTAC-NaCl | 95 | 99 | 0.968 | 100 | 100 | 1.0 | 57.7 | 89 | 0.669 | 50.0 | 96 | 0.648 |
Combined results from all diagnostic techniques were considered as “gold standard.” κ index was interpreted as follows: < 0, poor agreement; 0–0.20, slight agreement; 0.21–0.40, fair agreement; 0.41–0.60, moderate agreement; 0.61–0.80, substantial agreement; and 0.81–1.0, almost perfect agreement.