Background:

Paramphistomosis is an emerging, hard to diagnose, parasitic disease, which causes enormous economic losses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of two coprological techniques: McMaster and Mini- Flotac to diagnose Paramphistomum spp. from bovine samples.

Methods:

Paramphistomum spp. egg recovery through McMaster and Mini-Flotac was analyzed in bovine fecal samples, with known quantities of epg. Different floating solutions of ZnCl2 and ZnSO4 were used, with densities of 1.45 and 1.50 mg/mL. Then, the performances of McMaster and Mini-Flotac were determined in fecal samples from sacrifice bovines (n=40), as well as samples from dairy herds (n=155).

Results:

Both techniques yielded similar egg recovery accuracies, for known epg in different floating solutions (59-77 %). Accuracy was similar both in McMaster (16.93-25.83%) and Mini-Flotac (17.83-25.05%). Linearity was observed in epg counts between McMaster and Mini-Flotac, in both fecal samples from sacrifice bovines (R2=0.93) and from dairy herds (R=2=0.71). The prevalences of Paramphistomum spp. in dairy herds were 42.9% (McMaster), and 43.5% (Mini-Flotac).

Conclusions:

The two coprological techniques are highly accurate, with significant recovery at detecting Paramphistomum spp. eggs in bovine feces, thus indicating the feasibility of these parasitological diagnostic techniques.