Table 1.

Comparison of the major techniques for parasite detection in stool (info mainly from [11]).

Method	Principle	Advantage	Disadvantage	Sensitivity	Time	Sample Amount
Kato–Katz	Feces are pressed through a mesh screen to remove large particles. A portion of sieved sample is then transferred to the hole of a template on a slide. After filling the hole, the template is removed, and the remaining sample is covered with a piece of cellophane soaked in glycerol. The glycerol clears the fecal material from around the eggs.	Easy sample preparation   Cheap	Reduced sensitivity in individuals with low parasite loads	Medium	30–60 min	41.7 mg
McMaster	Sample is added to a flotation solution and placed under a slide with two gridded chambers. Eggs float towards the surface and the ones within the gridded area of the chamber are counted using a microscope.	Easy procedure   Fast results	Lacks sensitivity at low eggs counts	Medium	5–10 min	2 g
FECPAK	A tube with a central pillar is filled with a stool sample dissolved in flotation solution, allowing the parasite eggs to accumulate into a single viewing area within a fluid meniscus. An image of the fecal sample is then captured.	Digitalized images   Doesn’t require technical skills	Limited sensitivity of the test	Medium	24 min	3 g
FLOTAC	Technique based on centrifugal flotation of a fecal sample suspension and subsequent translation of the apical portion of the floating suspension.	Very precise and sensitive	Complexity of the application   Requirement for large swinging bucket centrifuge	Very high	12–15 min	1 g
Mini-FLOTAC	Method based on flotation of the eggs. Miniaturized version of FLOTAC. Two chambers (1 mL each) are filled with fecal sample diluted in flotation solution.	Permits work with fresh and fixed fecal samples   No centrifugation steps	Detection of some parasites (e.g., trematoda) requires centrifugation	High	12 min	2 g
Cornell Wisconsin	Flotation of eggs in salt solutions is enabled by centrifugation. After centrifugation in a swinging bucket rotor, the eggs are collected on the top of the centrifugal tube meniscus, and subsequently transferred onto a cover slip and counted by light microscopy.	No expensive tools needed   Cheap and easy procedure	Lack of precision, owing to the absence of a grid on the coverslip   Low sensitivity	Low	20 min	5 g
Lab-on-a-disk	Separation is based on a combined gravitational and centrifugal flotation, with the eggs guided to a packed monolayer, enabling quantitation and identification of subtypes of the eggs present in a single field of view	Single and high quality digitalized image   Fast results	Not commercially available   Cost unclear	High	15 min	1 g