First molecular approach to diagnose paediatric pulmonary lophomoniasis: A case series

Abstract

A prospective study was conducted from 2017 to 2021 at Bouali Hospital in Mazandaran province, Sari, Iran. Out of 58 patients who were enrolled in our study, lophomoniasis was diagnosed in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of nine patients, for the first time, using an in‐house polymerase chain reaction technique. All patients were treated with metronidazole at 7.5 mg/kg/day every 12 h for 14 days. After 6 months of follow‐up, symptoms were fully resolved.

Response Comment on “Detection of Lophomonas blattarum (Order: Hypermastigida from Iranian Patients with Allergic Rhinitis”

“…Surfing the scientific websites showed there is only one article about the severity and density of Lophomonas infection which represents this issue “Based on our experience in the INRCL, an innovative severity index (SI) for Lophomonas infection was scored as mild to severe parasite density by counting parasites per high-power microscopic fields (HPF) (400×). Accordingly, mild density was defined as 1–10 parasites/100 HPF, moderate as 1–10 parasites/10 HPF, and 1–10 parasites/HPF were considered as severe” ( 9 ). Besides that, this method is an innovative method for the severity detection of Lophomonas , we believe that this method could not be an appropriate way for use in the laboratory as a standard method because samples for searching Lophomonas are mucoid and must be homogenized, and for this purpose, samples must be centrifuged which can affect the motility of Lophomonas and the detection of this protozoan can be confusing.…”