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Abstract
Parasitic infections are one of the major public health problems worldwide particularly in developing countries. Due to suppression of the immune response in cancer patients, some of these infections can be more hostile and life threatening. Studies of opportunistic parasites in Egyptian adult cancer patients are scarce. Therefore this study was performed to estimate the prevalence of opportunistic parasites in different groups of cancer patients recruited from the Medical Oncology Department, Cairo University. One hundred and fifty patients were divided into 3 groups: group A: 50 patients with hematological malignancies treated with chemotherapy; group B: 50 patients with solid organ tumors treated with chemotherapy and group C: 50 patients with solid organ tumors treated with radiotherapy. As a control group, 50 cross-matched immunocompetent individuals were included (group D). Sheets were filled out on each subject including all personal and medical history. Both groups were subjected to stool and blood examinations for parasites. The results showed higher prevalence of opportunistic parasites in patients with neoplasms than in the control cases (57% versus 46%). Patients treated with radiation had higher rates of infection than those treated with chemotherapy (68% versus 52%). Also, patients having solid organ tumors had higher rates of infection than the ones who have haematological malignancies (63% versus 46%). These differences were statistically significant (p<0.005). The most prevalent parasite in patients was B. hominis (26%) followed by Cryptosporidium spp. (25%), T.gondii (20%), Microsporidium spp (12.6%), C.cayetanensis (3.3%) and the least prevalent was I.belli (0.6%). Strongyloides stercoralis was not detected in any case either by the Agar plate method or the Harada Mori culture tube