No abstract

Diagnosis of intestinal parasites in stool samples is generally still carried out by microscopy; however, this technique is known to suffer from a low sensitivity and is unable to discriminate between certain protozoa. In order to overcome these limitations, a real-time multiplex PCR was evaluated as an alternative approach for diagnosing Giardia lamblia, Cryptosporidium spp. and Entamoeba histolytica in stool samples.Therefore, a total of 631 faecal samples were analysed both by microscopy as well as by real-time PCR following automated DNA extraction. Results showed that real-time PCR exhibited sensitivity and specificity of both 100%, whereas traditional microscopy exhibited sensitivity and specificity of 37.5% and 99.8% respectively. As real-time PCR provides simple, sensitive and specific detection of these three important pathogenic protozoan parasites, this technique, rather than microscopy, has become our diagnostic method of choice for the detection of enteric protozoan parasites for the majority of patients.

No abstract

No abstract

We report three cases of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) due to Streptococcus pneumoniae in previously healthy young women. S. pneumoniae frequently causes bacteremia, meningitis and respiratory infections, but it very rarely infects the genital tract. All our patients presented with an acute onset of severe abdominal pain and had an intrauterine device (IUD) present. No abnormal sexual behavior was noticed. Although the relation between PID due to S. pneumoniae and the use of an IUD has been a topic for discussions, culture of IUD in all our patients and blood culture in 2 of 3 of our patients revealed S. pneumoniae. All patients recovered well with intravenous antibiotic treatment and removal of the IUD.