Two direct methods for the diagnosis of trichinellosis were compared:
trichinoscopy and artificial digestion. Muscles from 17 wistar rats, orally
infected with 500 Trichinella spiralis encysted larvae were examined. From
each of the following muscles: diaphragm, tongue, masseters, intercostals,
triceps brachialis and cuadriceps femoralis, 648,440 larvae from 1 g
samples were recovered. The linear correlation between trichinoscopy and
artificial digestion was very high and significant (r=0.94, p{ 0.0001),
showing that both methods for the detection of muscular larvae did not
differ significantly. In both methods, significant differences were found
in the distribution of larvae per gramme of muscle.
