[Intestinal parasitoses: contribution to their clinical diagnosis]

A fairly high number of symptoms are usually ascribed to intestinal parasites, a fact leading many times to various treatments in the absence of diagnostic evidence. Aiming to correlate presence of parasite with that of signs and symptoms authors have reviewed 1,131 patients submitted, for several reasons, to a search of parasites which was positive in only 384 cases. Authors conclude that only eosinophilia is a quite constant finding in E. vermicularis infestation and abdominal pain and chronic diarrhea are often present during giardia infestations.