Fig 1.
Flow chart used to process stool specimens.
Diagram showing the flow of clinical samples, diagnostic, and molecular identification procedures followed in the present study.
Table 1.
Distribution of Blastocystis sp., D. fragilis, and other parasites in immunocompetent and immunodeficient patients with diarrhea.
Table 2.
Comparison of saline, Lugol’s iodine, formol ethyl acetate concentration technique (FECT), trichrome staining (TS) and culture methods for detecting Blastocystis sp. and D. fragilis. qPCR was used as the reference method for comparing methods by statistical analyses.
Table 3.
Distribution of the prevalence of Blastocystis sp. and Dientamoeba fragilis in immunodeficient (n = 245) and immunocompetent patients (n = 193) by gender, age and season (Statistically significant values have been highlighted in bold).
Table 4.
Median of qPCR cycle threshold (Ct) values of Blastocystis sp. and D. fragilis (Statistically significant values have been highlighted in bold).
Table 5.
Blastocystis sp. subtypes identified by next generation sequencing including information about number of variants per subtype and patients ID in which they were found. Bold denotes intra-subtype variability.
Table 6.
Distribution of Blastocystis sp. subtypes in the immunodeficient (n = 28) and immunocompetent (n = 40) patient groups.