الفهرس 
Introduction
Historical backgroundOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Sarcocystosis, an unusual parasitic zoonotic disease, is caused by coccidian/ apicomplexan protozoa in humans and animals. The parasites usually develop in a heteroxenous predator-prey life-cycle involving final (carnivore) and intermediate (omnivore/herbivore) hosts. Besides the intestinal, (non-invasive form of the disease) in which humans and animals are the definitive hosts for certain Sarcocystis spp., the invasive form (muscular sarcocystosis) has come to recent attention. In the latter, humans and animals serve as intermediate host harbouring sarcocysts in their muscle tissue.
The present study was conducted to detect the prevalence of muscular sarcocystosis among 100 randomly selected patients with musculoskeletal complaint from Rheumatology and Rehabilitation Department of Faculty of medicine, Assiut University Hospital. The indirect immunoflorescent test (IFAT) was used with Sarcocystis fusiformis cytezoites as antegin.
The overall seroprevalence among the examined serum samples was 52%. There were 21 out of 38 (55. 3%) positive in the non-specific rheumatic patients (myositis and arthralgia patients) and 31 out of 62 (50%) positive in autoimmune connective tissue disease patients (SLE, RA, JIA patients).
Patients with myositis have the highest percentage of positivity among all groups and subgroups which was (71.4%) and (83.3%) respectively, and the only significant relationship between positive and negative cases in all groups and subgroups. Differential blood picture of 39 out of 52 (75%) seropositive cases expressed eosinophilia that ranged from 7-18%. Sarcocystis infection may be an important cause of the non-specific rheumatic diseases associated with myositis.