DIAGNOSIS OF GIARDIOSIS IN CHILDREN: RESULTS OF A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY

Giardiasis in children remains an urgent problem, the importance of which is determined by the endemicity for many countries and regions, polymorphism of the clinic, which causes difficulties in clinical diagnosis of this pathology. The report presents the results of the diagnostic significance of methods of laboratory diagnostics giardiase: microscopy of native and stained with Lugol solution preparation fecal enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) for the presence of antibodies of class IgM and IgG antibodies to the antigens of Giardia in the serum and antigen of G. Lamblia in feces, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - detection of Giardia DNA in feces obtained during the examination of 160 patients with giardiasis children aged 3 to 14 years. The results of our study suggest that the most informative methods of diagnosis of giardiasis in children is coproscopy (specificity - 96.2%, sensitivity - 98.1%), PCR coprofiltrate. (specificity - 85%, sensitivity 82.5%), determination of antigen in feces by ELISA (specificity - 87,5%, sensitivity - 60%). With high specificity of the blood ELISA method (90%), the sensitivity of the method is only 27.5%. It should be recognized that the «gold standard» diagnosis of giardiasis remains microscopy of native and stained with a solution of Lugol preparation of feces with a three - time study at intervals of 2-3 days.