Evaluation of Fecal Egg Count Tests for Effective Control of Equine Intestinal Strongyles

Manigandan Lejeune; Sabine Mann; Holly White; Danielle Maguire; Jaime Hazard; Rebecca Young; Charles Stone; Doug Antczak; Dwight Bowman

doi:10.3390/pathogens12111283

Evaluation of Fecal Egg Count Tests for Effective Control of Equine Intestinal Strongyles

Pathogens. 2023 Oct 26;12(11):1283. doi: 10.3390/pathogens12111283.

Authors

Manigandan Lejeune¹, Sabine Mann², Holly White¹, Danielle Maguire¹, Jaime Hazard¹, Rebecca Young¹, Charles Stone³, Doug Antczak⁴, Dwight Bowman⁴

Affiliations

¹ Animal Health Diagnostic Center, Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, Cornell University, 240 Farrier Rd., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
² Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
³ College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
⁴ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

Abstract

The American Association of Equine Practitioners strongly advocates evidence-based intestinal strongyle control in horses. It recommends targeted treatment of all heavy egg shedders (>500 eggs per gram (EPG) of feces), while the low shedders (0-200 EPG) are left untreated. As 50-75% of adult horses in a herd are low shedders, preventing them from unnecessary anthelmintic exposure is critical for tackling resistance. There are various fecal egg count (FEC) techniques with many modifications and variations in use, but none is identified as a gold standard. The hypothesis of the study was that the diagnostic performance of 12 commonly used quantitation methodologies (three techniques with four variants) differs. In this regard, method comparison studies were performed using polystyrene beads as proxy for intestinal strongyle eggs. Mini-FLOTAC-based variants had the lowest coefficient of variation (CV%) in bead recovery, whereas McMaster variants had the highest. All four variants of Mini-FLOTAC and the NaNO₃ 1.33 specific gravity variant of modified Wisconsin followed a linear fit with R² > 0.95. In contrast, the bead standard replicates for modified McMaster variants dispersed from the regression curve, causing a lower R². The Mini-FLOTAC method seems less influenced by the choice of floatation solution and has better repeatability parameters and linearity for bead standard recovery. For FEC tests with high R² (>0.95) but that underestimated the true bead count, a correction factor (CF) was determined to estimate the true count. Finally, the validity of CF was analyzed for 5 tests with R² > 0.95 to accurately quantify intestinal strongyle eggs from 40 different horses. Overall, this study identified FEC methodologies with the highest diagnostic performance. The limitations in standardizing routine FEC tests are highlighted, and the importance of equalization of FEC results is emphasized for promoting uniformity in the implementation of parasite control guidelines.

Keywords: FEC; FEC gold standard; Mini-FLOTAC; Wisconsin floatation; fecal egg count; modified McMaster.

Grants and funding

Oklahoma State University Foundation #321805; OSP 91096/National Center for Veterinary Parasitology (NCVP) - research grant program 2019 (Oklahoma State University Foundation)