Xenodiagnosis is a

diagnostic method Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different academic discipline, disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine "causality, cause a ...

used to document the presence of

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

microorganisms or

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

s by exposing possibly infected tissue to a

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

and then examining the vector for the presence of the microorganisms or pathogens it may have ingested.Xenodiagnosis-Medical Lexicon
/ref>

Uses

Xenodiagnosis has not been commonly used in diagnosing

Lyme disease Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a vector-borne disease caused by the ''Borrelia'' bacterium, which is spread by ticks in the genus ''Ixodes''. The most common sign of infection is an expanding red rash, known as erythema migran ...

because ''

in vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning in glass, or ''in the glass'') studies are performed with microorganisms, cells, or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called "test-tube experiments", these studies in biology an ...

'' cell culturing now serves the purpose,Advances in Parasitology, Volume 36
/ref> however the process is commonly used to diagnose infections involving

microorganisms A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

such as

trypanosomiasis Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus ''Trypanosoma''. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseas ...

Study

Émile Brumpt Alexandre Joseph Émile Brumpt (10 March 1877, in Paris – 8 July 1951) was a French parasitologist. He studied zoology and parasitology in Paris, obtaining his degree in science in 1901, and his medical doctorate in 1906. In 1919 he succeeded ...

introduced the xenodiagnosis technique into parasitological research and extensively studied such diseases as bilharzia, Chagas disease, onchocerciasis and leishmaniasis. Medical professionals primarily use xenodiagnosis in determining the presence of a chronic infection of ''

Trypanosoma cruzi ''Trypanosoma cruzi'' is a species of parasitic euglenoids. Among the protozoa, the trypanosomes characteristically bore tissue in another organism and feed on blood (primarily) and also lymph. This behaviour causes disease or the likelihood of ...

'' (the flagellate that causes

Chagas disease Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by ''Trypanosoma cruzi''. It is spread mostly by insects in the subfamily ''Triatominae'', known as "kissing bugs". The symptoms change over the cou ...

). Directly and definitively demonstrating the presence of this causative agent in a patient proves difficult. Therefore, the doctor allows a

triatominae The members of the Triatominae , a subfamily of the Reduviidae, are also known as conenose bugs, kissing bugs (so-called from their habit of feeding from around the mouths of people), or vampire bugs. Other local names for them used in The Ameri ...

, a vector of the flagellate, to take a blood meal from the patient. The doctor later inspects the gut of the triatominae for growth of ''Trypanosoma cruzi''. Medical professionals historically successfully identified

babesiosis Babesiosis or piroplasmosis is a malaria-like parasitic disease caused by infection with a eukaryotic parasite in the order Piroplasmida, typically a ''Babesia'' or ''Theileria'', in the phylum Apicomplexa. Human babesiosis transmission via ti ...

with xenodiagnosis, both in hamsters for ''

Babesia ''Babesia'', also called ''Nuttallia'', is an apicomplexan parasite that infects red blood cells and is transmitted by ticks. Originally discovered by the Romanian bacteriologist Victor Babeș in 1888, over 100 species of ''Babesia'' have since ...

microti'' and in gerbils for ''

divergens''. They now use faster diagnostic measures. Xenodiagnosis for

filariasis Filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by an infection with roundworms of the Filarioidea type. These are spread by blood-feeding insects such as black flies and mosquitoes. They belong to the group of diseases called helminthiases. These par ...

is now obsolete.

References

External links

* {{MeshNumber, E01.370.985, Xenodiagnosis --- xenodiagnosis Diagnosis classification