[Laboratory diagnosis of pseudoparasites, artifacts and parasitic delusions]

Common practice in a diagnostic parasitology laboratory involves distinguishing parasitic organisms from various artifacts. Artifacts mean pseudoparasites, supposed parasites and parasitic delusions. Pseudoparasites include undigested leftovers or coincidentally or purposely ingested nonparasitic organisms or their parts. Supposed parasites are wild organisms which were incorrectly identified as the components of faeces. In parasitic delusions, it is impossible to find any kind of parasites while patients describe imaginary parasites in detail. All the above categories of nonparasitic findings including case reports are described and discussed in the article.