Schistosomiasis is considered a neglected tropical disease and remains a
major public health problem throughout the tropics and subtropics with significant
socioeconomic impact. More than 200 million people are infected worldwide. Within
schistosomiasis, the specie Schistosoma mansoni is a major cause of this parasitic
disease in developing countries and has been associated with high morbidity and
mortality during both acute and chronic phases of infection. For the diagnosis of
schistosomiasis mansoni, the gold standard is used for the detection of parasite eggs in
stools. However, in patients with low parasite infection burdens, the direct detection of
eggs is difficult owing to its low sensitivity. For this reason, serological tests are used
to detect secreted S. mansoni antigens or antibodies produced to combat adult worm or
soluble egg antigens. However, these assays are unable to differentiate between the
different phases, which is necessary to follow up the evolution of the disease and
chemotherapy efficacy. Research into other diagnostic tests has shown ways of
overcoming the problems inherent to antibody detection and parasitological techniques
in moderately to marginally endemic areas. Other techniques, such as polymerase chain
reaction assays, have been considered as methods for the diagnosis of S. mansoni
infections in different samples: stool, serum and urine. In this chapter, imaging
methods are used not for the diagnosis of schistosomiasis as a disease, but for the
diagnosis of morbidity, identifying the changes caused by Schistosoma mansoni
infection in the human organism.
Keywords: Diagnostic methods, Imaging methods, Immunodiagnosis, Molecular
diagnosis, Parasitological diagnosis, Schistosomiasis mansoni.
