Reliability of coprological diagnosis of Paramphistomum sp. infection in cows

A modified MacMaster method was tested to check its reliability for the diagnosis of bovine paramphistomosis in France. A total number of 148 fecal samples from cows examined post-mortem were analysed. Coprological results were in accordance with necropsic examinations. Bayesian techniques (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) were used to estimate the diagnostic parameters of each of these tests. Two scenarios were envisaged: one assuming a sensitivity of the necropsic examination equal to 1 and one assuming the specificity of the coprology equal to 1. Whatever the scenarios, each test presented good estimated parameters, always superior to 0.9. A significant relationship was clearly established between epg counts and parasites burden: more than 100 epg indicated the presence of more than 100 adult paramphistomes in rumen and/or reticulum.