Mini Flotac®
Aims: The Mini Flotac® allows for the quantitative analysis of parasitic elements present in the faeces of farm animals and companion animals. It is most commonly used for the quantification of helminth eggs, coccidia oocysts, bronchopulmonary nematode larvae.
The Mini Flotac® is commercially available together with the Fill Flotac® kit, allowing for the necessary preparation of the sample to be completed without additional equipment. This renders this technique ideal for field use or for any use outside of the conventional diagnostic laboratory.
There are two Fill Flotac® version: the Fill-Flotac® 2 that is calibrated for 2 grams of feces (recommended for dog, cats and human samples), and the Fill-Flotac® 5 that is calibrated for 5 grams of feces (recommended for farm animals).
Here we perform the Mini Flotac® technique on a dog fecal sample.
Materials:
- Faecal sample
- Fill Flotac®
- Mini Flotac®
- Floatation solution, e.g. Zinc sulphate (ZnSO4) s.g. 1.200
- Reading adapter for microscope
- Tally click counter
Procedure:
Pour 18 mL of liquid into the Fill Flotac® cup. Then fill and level off the Fill Flotac® collecting cone with feces. The collector cone holds 2 g of faeces, which equates to a dilution ratio of 1:10 (2 g faeces + 18 ml of floatation solution). Homogenize and filter the sample using the Fill Flotac®. Assemble the Mini Flotac® and rotate it until it reaches the filling position. Fill the two chambers with the fecal suspension. Allow the filled device to sit for 10 minutes for the flotation of the parasitic elements to occur. Rotate the device to the reading position and remove the rotation key.
Results:
Place the Mini Flotac® on the microscope affixing it with the supplied adapter. Examine each reading chamber at 10x objective and count all targeted parasitic elements using the tally click counter to help record.
The dilution ratio will influence the calculations to determine parasitic elements per gram of faeces. In this case, multiply the total number of targeted parasitic elements found in both chambers by 5 to obtain the number of eggs/oocysts/larvae per gram of faeces (EPG/OPG/LPG).
References:
Mini Flotac® Technique:
Cringoli, G., Maurelli, M.P., Levecke, B., Bosco, A., Vercruysse, J., Utzinger, J., Rinaldi, L. (2017) The Mini-FLOTAC technique for the diagnosis of helminth and protozoan infections in humans and animals. Nature Protocols, 12 (9), pp. 1723-1732. DOI: 10.1038/nprot.2017.067