Altman Asher C, Bohner Andrew D, Brown Victoria J, Barger Lauren, Gleason Rudolph L, Rains James K, Stubbs James B, Kubelick Kelsey P, Stephens Mariana
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory, University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2025 Apr 19;12(4):432. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering12040432.
Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are parasitic worms that impact over 1.5 billion people globally. The Kato-Katz technique analyzes stool samples for STHs, allowing for individual diagnoses of STH infection and the estimation of community-level prevalence. One challenge that arises with the procedure is that lab technicians often struggle to prepare microscope slides of sufficient quality for analysis after one attempt. As a result, Kato-Katz procedures are repeated, wasting time and resources. To aid technicians during in-field slide preparation, we created the Stool Stomper. The Stool Stomper is a user-friendly, handheld mechanical device that applies constant, uniform pressure to stool samples to ensure standardized sample preparation onto microscope slides to improve egg counts. The Stool Stomper was assessed using artificial eggs during in-country testing in a lab setting in Dodoma, Tanzania, by lab technicians with various experience levels, from beginner to advanced. Compared to the traditional method, we found that the Stool Stomper reduced slide preparation time, reduced artificial egg counting time, and standardized artificial egg counts with more consistent and accurate readings. The current pilot study highlights the potential for future development and integration of the Stool Stomper device into the Kato-Katz technique to improve community-based STH treatment.
土源性蠕虫（STHs）是一种寄生虫，全球超过15亿人受到其影响。加藤厚涂片法（Kato-Katz technique）通过分析粪便样本检测土源性蠕虫，可对个体的土源性蠕虫感染进行诊断，并估计社区层面的感染率。该检测过程面临的一个挑战是，实验室技术人员往往难以一次就制备出质量足够用于分析的显微镜载玻片。因此，加藤厚涂片法检测需要重复进行，浪费了时间和资源。为了在现场制备载玻片时帮助技术人员，我们发明了粪便捣碎器（Stool Stomper）。粪便捣碎器是一种用户友好型的手持式机械设备，它能对粪便样本施加恒定、均匀的压力，以确保在显微镜载玻片上进行标准化的样本制备，从而提高虫卵计数。在坦桑尼亚多多马的一个实验室环境中，由从初级到高级不同经验水平的实验室技术人员在国内测试期间使用人工虫卵对粪便捣碎器进行了评估。与传统方法相比，我们发现粪便捣碎器减少了载玻片制备时间，缩短了人工虫卵计数时间，并使人工虫卵计数标准化，读数更一致、准确。当前的试点研究突出了粪便捣碎器装置未来发展以及整合到加藤厚涂片法中以改善基于社区的土源性蠕虫治疗的潜力。
