Validation Articles and Media

VMX 2023 Presentation: Parasight System Validation 

Jennifer Cain, PhD, Parasitologist

Learn about Parasight’s in depth validation from parasitologist Jennifer Cain.  This presentation was acknowledged as one of the best uses of AI technology in the companion animal field during the North American Veterinary Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida, January 2023.  


North American Veterinary Meeting and Exhibition 2023
“Poo, Your Practice, and You: AI technology for improved parasite diagnostics”
Jennifer Cain, PhD and Paul Slusarewicz, PhD

Comprehensive discussion of fecal egg counts and AI technology.  Addresses global drug resistance affecting almost all available anthelmintics, breakthroughs in AI parasite detection, and practical clinical advantages of using AI driven fecal egg count technology.

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International Journal for Parasitology
“Automated parasite faecal egg counting using fluorescence labelling, smartphone image capture and computational image analysis”

Paul Slusarewicz, Stefanie Pagano, Christopher Mills, Gabriel Popa, K. Martin Chow, Michael Mendenhall, David W. Rodgers, Martin. K. Nielsen

Intestinal parasites are a concern in veterinary medicine worldwide and for human health in the devel­oping world. Infections are identified by microscopic visualisation of parasite eggs in faeces, which is time-consuming, requires technical expertise and is impractical for use on-site. For these reasons, recom­mendations for parasite surveillance are not widely adopted and parasite control is based on administra­tion of rote prophylactic treatments with anthelmintic drugs. This approach is known to promote anthelmintic resistance, so there is a pronounced need for a convenient egg counting assay to promote good clinical practice.

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Veterinary Parasitology
“Evaluation of accuracy and precision of a smartphone based automated parasite egg counting system in comparison to the McMaster and Mini-FLOTAC methods”

J.A. Scare, P. Slusarewicz, M.L. Noel, K.M. Wielgus, M.K. Nielsen

Fecal egg counts are emphasized for guiding equine helminth parasite control regimens due to the rise of an-thelmintic resistance. This, however, poses further challenges, since egg counting results are prone to issues such as operator dependency, method variability, equipment requirements, and time commitment. The use of image analysis software for performing fecal egg counts is promoted in recent studies to reduce the operator dependency associated with manual counts. In an attempt to remove operator dependency associated with current methods, we developed a diagnostic system that utilizes a smartphone and employs image analysis to generate automated egg count.

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Scientia
“Fighting Endemic Parasites:  New Technologies to Solve Old Challenges”
Paul Slusarewicz, PhD

Intestinal worms are among the most common types of parasitic infections worldwide. Despite technological advances in other areas of medical diagnostics, the procedure for identifying worm infection, the faecal egg count, has remained largely unchanged since its debut nearly a century ago. Dr Paul Slusarewicz and the team at MEP Equine Solutions are revolutionising the way veterinarians detect and quantify worm infections using a tool many of us already carry on a daily basis – our smartphone… 

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Gluck Equine Research & Service Report
“Research and Development of Fecal Egg Count Methods”
Hannah Forte 

Paul Slusarewicz, PhD, adjunct professor at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center, and cofounder and chief scientific officer at MEP Equine Solutions LLC, is developing a method to rapidly detect and count the number of parasite eggs in feces. Slusarewicz, who began this work as a visiting scholar at UK, has been collaborating with and working in the lab of Martin Nielsen, DVM, PhD, DEVPC, DACVM, assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Science at the Gluck Center… 

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Veterinary Parasitology Researching and Developing Novel Fecal Egg Count Methods – The Horse

Paul Slusarewicz, PhD, Johanna Slusarewicz, M. K. Nielsen, PhD, DVM

…automated egg counting procedure for use with small ruminants…relative to manual McMaster counting…produced on average equivalent counts…the automated method was significantly more precise than McMaster counting at egg levels below 1000 EPG, and equally precise at higher counts.

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Veterinary Parasitology What makes a good fecal egg count technique?

Martin K. Nielsen, PhD, DVM

The first parasite fecal egg counting techniques were described over 100 years ago, and fecal egg counting remains essential in parasitology as well as in clinical practice today. Several novel techniques have been introduced and validated in recent years…

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Efficacy of targeted deworming confirmed.

 

Christine Barakat.  Courtesy post via EQUUS magazine.

Study confirms that use of fecal egg counts will slow the development of drug resistance in equine internal parasites.

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