ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of intestinal parasites and to evaluate changes in the annual rates by retrospective screening of the data from our hospital’s parasitology laboratory between the period of 2000 and 2006. Parasitological examinations were done with native-Lugol, cellophane-tape methods and trichrome staining in ambiguous cases, in a total of 67539 samples. The prevalence of the intestinal parasitosis during the years 2000 and 2006 years were found to be 7.2% and 3.8%, respectively. The most prevalent parasites were Entamoeba spp. (except for E. histolytica) (53%), Giardia intestinalis (25.9%) and Enterobius vermicularis (8.3%). Entamoeba histolytica/E. dispar (5.3%), Ascaris lumbricoides (3%), Taenia saginata (2.2%) and Hymenolepis nana (2%) were the other parasites detected in this study. Even though a decrease in the annual prevalence of parasitosis was apparent, it was noticed that the parasitic diseases are still a significant health problem in our country.