The relation of worm burden to passage of Schistosoma haematobium eggs in the urine of infected patients.

Patients scheduled for cystectomy for bladder carcinoma or exstrophy of the bladder were studied. The number of eggs per day passed in the urine preoperatively was compared with the number of worms recovered from the cystectomy specimen by dissection. A mean of 203 embryonated Schistosoma haematobium eggs per day per worm pair were recovered from the urine of active, untreated cases. The relation between the number of S. haematobium females recovered and the number of living eggs passed in the urine was questionably significant. The correlation between S. haematobium females and all eggs (living and dead) passed in the urine was somewhat better. Several S. mansoni females were recovered from one specimen. This patient passed 139 embryonated S. mansoni eggs per day in the urine for each female worm recovered. Only one active case, treated 6 weeks before operation, might have been missed on routine parasitological examination of the urine.