Research in Human-Animal Interaction
Zhang XiaoWen
Journal of Tropical Medicine (Guangzhou). 2009. 9: 12, 1454-1455.
A study was conducted to evaluate the extent of <i>Toxoplasma gondii</i> infection among patients with central nervous system diseases in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China. 180 patients with unknown cause of nervous system diseases and 135 health subjects were studied. Anti-toxoplasma antibody (ATAb) was measured by ELISA method. Compared with the control subjects 9.63% (13/135), 28.89% (52/180) of patients in the study group were sero-positive for ATAb. The percentage of ATAb sero-positive patients with encephalopathy, epilepsy, mental disorder and neurasthaenia was 28.05% (23/82), 44.44% (4/9), 32.14% (9/28) and 26.23% (16/61), respectively. 47.62% (30/63) of ATAb sero-positive patients had previous history of pets-feeding. 18.8% (22/117) of sero-positive patients had no previous history of pets-feeding. The positive rate of ATAb of the studied group was significantly (<i>P</i><0.01) higher than the control group. There was no significant difference in the positive rate of ATAb in patients with various types of nervous system diseases (<i>P</i><0.05). Development of ATAb is correlated with pet-feeding in these patients.