New Methylene Blue Stain for Malaria Detection on Thin Smears

Abstract

Background: Malaria is the most important parasitic infection of man. Microscopy remains gold standard in malaria diagnosis. Management of malaria requires rapid detection of parasite in human blood. Hence there is a need to develop another diagnostic method with less limitation, which will address this issue. Aim and Objectives: To find a low cost reliable and accurate method for malaria detection on peripheral smear. Material and Methods: A prospective study of 40 cases was done. Two thin smears were prepared for each case; one was stained with Leishman stain and other with new methylene blue stain and examined under oil immersion. The smears were examined individually by two pathologists and results were prepared. Different parasitic morphologic forms were looked for. Parasitemia percentage was calculated. We also compared number of fields required to diagnose with both stains in positive cases. Results: In this study we found that 25 (83.3%) cases were detected in less than 50 fields using New Methylene blue stain against 18 (60.0%) cases with Leishman stain. We also found 100% sensitivity and specificity for New Methylene blue stain, whereas Leishman stain showed 90% sensitivity and specificity of 85%. Conclusion: The detection of malaria parasite was considerably easy with New Methylene Blue stain and required less time in comparison with Leishman stain.

Keywords

• Malaria
• New Methylene Blue Stain
• Leishman stain
• Parasitemia