No association between abdominal pain and Dientamoeba in Dutch and Belgian children

Objective To study the association between Dientamoebafragilis colonisation and faecal calprotectin to see whether the parasite is a harmless commensal or a gut pathogen. Design Cross-sectional study of previously collected stool samples. Setting and patients Two hundred stool samples originated from children aged 5-19 years with chronic abdominal pain and diarrhoea, who were seen in paediatric clinics in the Netherlands and Belgium and in whom somatic gastrointestinal disorders were excluded. Another 122 samples came from a healthy community-based reference population of the same age. All sto... Mehr ...