Parasitic Infections Among Renal Transplant Recipients in Kuala Lumpur Hospital

Abstract

One hundred seventy-one patients suffering from chronic renal diseases at Kuala Lumpur Hospital participated in a crosssectional study with purposive sampling to ascertain prevalence rates of Cryptosporidium parvum (C. parvum), Giardia intestinalis (G. intestinalis), Blastocystis hominis (B. hominis) and Strongyloides stercoralis (S. stercoralis). The patients were divided into 2 groups: post-transplant group (138 patients) and pre-transplant group (33 patients). In this study, the parasite infection is linked to the aspects of race, gender, renal patient’s group and the postrenal transplantation period. Immunofluorescence staining was performed on fecal slides for the detection of C. parvum oocysts and G. intestinalis cysts. Sand charcoal culture technique was also used to detect the presence of S. strongyloides in fecal samples. The findings showed that the prevalence of C. parvum, G. intestinalis dan B. hominis among post-transplant patients was 18.1%, 10.9% and 22.5%, respectively but none of the pretransplant patient was infected. Meanwhile, both patient groups were free of S. stercoralis infection. Furthermore, there was no significant association between post-transplantation period and pattern in prevalence of the studied parasites, however, it was noted that the prevalence rates of C. parvum and G. intestinalis had declined after 6 months post transplantation.  DOI : http://dx.doi.org./10.17576/JSKM-2018-1601-07