Is pinworm a vanishing infection? Laboratory surveillance in a New York City medical center from 1971 to 1986
S. H. Vermund and S. MacLeod
Department of Epidemiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY.
Records of our parasitology laboratory were reviewed to determine trends in
the frequency of specimens submitted for diagnosis of pinworm infection,
the proportion of such specimens that were positive, and the proportion of
such positive results for the pediatric age group from 1971 to 1986 in a
major New York City medical center. These data demonstrate a markedly
declining trend in the absolute number of sticky tape tests sent for
pinworm diagnosis, from 248 in 1971 to 38 in 1986, an average of 8% decline
per year. The number of specimens identifying Enterobius vermicularis among
those submitted has similarly declined, from 57 in 1971 to none being
positive in 1986, an average of 16% decline per year. The dramatic decline
in pinworm identification and the fall in the number of specimens sent by
practitioners at this medical center, and reported elsewhere in the United
States by other investigators, may reflect a genuine decline in oxyuriasis
occurring in the patient populations served.
