Coprogram: stercobilin in feces

Fecal excrement, like urine, is the end product of human life. They are formed in the large intestine as a result of a variety of biochemical processes. They include water, undigested food particles, metabolic products, bacteria and others.

Do not underestimate the analysis of feces (otherwise - coprogram). Sometimes this study allows you to identify a person's stomach and bowel disease, liver disease, pancreatitis. But in most cases it is carried out not only to diagnose diseases, but also to control treatment.

Let's consider this topic in more detail and define: stercobilin in feces is positive - what is it?

Basic concepts

A coprogram, or stool analysis, is one of the most important ways of studying the functions of the digestive system with a large set of indicators. It reveals diseases of the stomach, liver, small and large intestine, gall bladder, pancreas, and also allows to follow the development and progression of already obvious diseases.

As a result of the coprogram, you can:

- To study the physical and chemical properties of feces. This is the color, consistency, sterocilin in the feces (there is no need to be afraid of a positive reaction, because it is normal), and so on.

- Conduct microscopy of the material.

- Identify the eggs of helminths.

- Detect hidden fecal blood.

- Make bacteriological examination (detection of pathogenic microorganisms, analysis of feces for sterocilin and intestinal microflora).

Four stages of stool analysis

The coprogram consists of several stages:

1. Investigation of the physical properties of feces. When it is carried out, the appearance of the stool is determined: color, shape, texture, odor, the presence of pathological microorganisms and impurities, the identification of undigested food particles, parasites.

2. Chemical examination includes the identification of several indicators (blood in the stool (which can not be detected with the naked eye), bilirubin, stercobilin in the feces and other substances).

3. Microscopic examination is used to assess the extent of food assimilation, the presence of parasites and yeast.

4. Bacteriological analysis, as a rule, is conducted with the purpose of revealing a dysbacteriosis, disturbances of a microflora and pathogenic bacteria.

How do I prepare for a test feces?

To obtain more accurate results 3 days before the test, several rules must be followed.

First, it is strictly forbidden to do a cleansing enema. And also do not take medications (laxatives or antidiarrheals) that affect the intestines.

Secondly, you should not inject candles into the anus or other similar medications.

Thirdly, you do not need to use medicines that change the color of the stool.

And most importantly, doctors recommend before you do the analysis of stool (reaction to sterocilin), adhere to a certain diet. Two types are suitable for this purpose:

- Pevsner's diet. Its main goal is to maximize the human body. For one day, you need to eat 400 grams of white bread, 250 grams of roasted meat, 100 grams of butter, 40 grams of sugar, buckwheat or rice porridge, chips, lettuce, cabbage, compote and apples. Caloric content is quite high - 3250 kcal. If you choose this diet, then be sure to consider the state of your digestive system. It will detect even a small degree of digestive disorder;

- Schmidt's diet. This daily diet includes 1-1.5 liters of milk, 2-3 boiled eggs, white bread and butter, 125 grams of minced meat, 200 g of mashed potatoes, 40 grams of boiled oatmeal. The daily calorific value is 2250 kcal. Power should be divided into 5 receptions.

Preparation for the study of a stool for concealed blood

Before examining the stool for concealed blood, doctors strongly recommend that patients eat such foods: green vegetables (cucumber, cabbage, zucchini, green pepper, broccoli and others), meat products, fish, eggs.

In addition, you need to refrain from taking medications that contain iron.

In the case when a person needs to urgently make a coprogram and find out what the reaction will be to stercobilin in the feces, or the patient can not adhere to one of the diets described above for health reasons, experts recommend not drinking alcohol and coffee the day before the study.

The main rules for collecting stools

For the study you need to take only morning feces. After defecation, the patient collects a small amount of feces with a wooden spoon or spatula and places it in a clean container, then closes it tightly. In order to identify stercobilin in the stool, 10-15 g of stool are enough.

There are some recommendations for collecting stool:

1. Before collecting feces, rinse the back area of the body well.

2. Women should not collect feces during menstruation, because there should be no admixture of menstrual blood in the stool.

3. It is not recommended to collect the feces after passing the radiological examination of the esophagus with the help of barium.

4. You can not collect feces after the introduction of suppositories and other drugs that affect the color of the stool.

5. It is not recommended to collect after enema and use of laxative tablets that affect the digestive system.

After collecting the feces, wash hands thoroughly with soap and dry them with a clean towel!

Other Important Recommendations

To identify fecal eggs of helminths, feces should be fresh and stored until delivery to the hospital in a warm place.

For a bacteriological study of feces (especially on stercobilin in a feces in a child), the patient needs to get a sterile cotton swab in the laboratory. Enter the tube in the anus is only a specialist.

To detect hidden blood in the feces, meat and fungi, as well as medicines with iodine, bromine and iron, should be excluded from the ration within 3 days before the analysis. On the fourth day, the patient collects the feces and sends them to the laboratory.

With severe constipation, you need to carry out a special massage of the colon. In case it does not lead to anything, the doctors do an enema and take for examination only a stiff chair.

Normal indicators of analysis. The sterilization in the feces is positive - what is it?

The norm is a dense fecal texture and a cylindrical shape. The color is brown, without any corrosive and harmful smells. During a visual inspection, food particles and harmful parasites should not be detected.

When microscopic examination in feces should be absent blood cells, muscle fibers of connective tissue, fats, starch, eggs of harmful parasites, yeasts and protozoa (amoeba, lamblia).

Samples for latent blood, protein, bilirubin should usually be negative. If you have a normal stool analysis, the reaction to stercobilin is positive, because it is this pigment that gives the feces a brown color.

Indicators at a deviation from norm

The main indicators that are not typical for a normal stool:

1. Formless feces.

2. Too hard feces.

3. Pungent smell.

4. The presence of visible or hidden particles of blood.

5. A positive reaction to bilirubin.

6. The presence of muscle fibers.

7. Found fat in the stool.

8. Change in color (black or white clay), which indicates that the stercobilin in the stool is absent.

9. Presence of food particles.

10. The presence of leukocytes (white blood cells).

11. Larvae and eggs of dangerous parasites.

12. Lamblias and amoebae.

Analysis of the child's coprogram results

Decoding of the analysis of the feces of children should be performed by a pediatrician or a children's gastroenterologist. In the study, it is important to consider the age of the child and the nature of the food. Children under the age of one year who do not take solid food are allowed a high concentration of undigested muscle fibers and fats in the stool.

In the event that the baby has a deficiency of lactase (an enzyme that breaks down the milk sugar - lactose), starch can be detected in the feces.

With dysbiosis, stool analysis is an additional method of investigation. The main thing considered to be microbiological analysis. However, the coprogram shows stercobilin in the feces positive in the child or negative, whether the intestine is inflamed (feces and fecal leukocytes are found in the feces), whether the process of digestion and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins and fats is broken (muscular fibers, fats, starch in the stool are found). After the analysis the doctor can draw a conclusion, that the child had a dysbacteriosis.

If the baby has hepatitis, the feces become greyish-white and resemble clay. This indicates that the stinkilbin in the feces of the baby is absent (which stains the normal stool in brown color) and the bile ceases to enter the intestines.

If the child is ill with chronic pancreatitis, the frequency of his bowel movements per day will be increased, the color of the stool will turn gray. Consistency of feces with pancreatitis is pasty, the smell is sour. Also, muscle fibers, fats, starch and a large number of leukocytes can be found - all these are signs of inflammation in the body and the fact that there is no stercobilin in the feces.

Black chair in the child and the presence of hidden blood in it - the consequence of the formation of ulcers in the stomach.

Diseases that cause changes in the composition of stool in adults

In diseases of the digestive system, it is very important to monitor the increase in the number of feces during the day. Usually this is due to pathological processes leading to digestion and absorption of food and water in the intestines. A decrease in the number of stools per day is observed in diseases characterized by prolonged constipation, such as peptic ulcer. Let us examine in more detail the main changes in the stool composition, which indicate the appearance of various diseases:

1. Discoloration of feces is observed, as a rule, with cholestasis. In this case, gallstones are formed, which violate the outflow of bile to the intestine. Jaundice develops, the stool loses color, acquiring a white tint. In the case (we are talking about the study, when determined by stercobilin in the feces) of a positive reaction, the color of the feces would be brown, and the condition of the organism is normal. The appearance of discolored feces with mechanical jaundice is mostly combined with nausea, eructation, fever. If the feces turn black, it means that the patient has a stomach ulcer. This is due to the rupture of blood vessels at the bottom of the ulcer. Esophageal varicose is common in people with cirrhosis of the liver.

2. The appearance of blood in the stool. If fresh blood was found during visual examinations, it indicates the appearance of such diseases as ulcerative colitis, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, dysentery.

3. Changing the smell of stool. A sharp, sour, unpleasant odor of stool is the result of the appearance of inflammatory processes in the body, a sign of chronic pancreatitis and confirmation of the fact that stercobilin in stool is absent. This disease is characterized by inadequate production of pancreatic juice, which is involved in the process of digesting carbohydrates, proteins and fats in the body. A large number of undigested food residues leads to an increase in putrefactive bacteria, which causes a sharp smell of stool.

4. The presence of protein in the stool indicates the occurrence of chronic atrophic gastritis, in which gastric juice is not produced in the stomach. With its deficiency, the protein in the small intestine does not split, but leaves the body with feces. Other symptoms of chronic atrophic gastritis are severity in the stomach after eating, belching with a rotten smell. Chronic pancreatitis also leads to the appearance of protein in the stool. His symptoms are bloating, unpleasant pain in the epigastric region or around the navel, low body mass index.

5. Hidden blood in the stool. Blood can not be seen with the naked eye. These microscopic particles can be detected only when passing a special analysis for hidden blood. It occurs with ulcers in the stomach and inflammation of the duodenum. Polyps of the stomach or intestines - a disease that is characterized by proliferation of the mucous membrane, the formation of polyps that cover the walls of the intestine or stomach. Food, passing through the digestive tract, damages the polyps, which leads to the appearance of a small amount of blood that enters the feces. Helminthiasis or the presence of worms in the intestine also become the cause of the detection of hidden blood in the feces, as harmful parasites damage the walls of the intestine.

6. A positive reaction to bilirubin. Bilirubin is a bile pigment that under the action of the microflora of the colon turns into sterocilin. Acute gastroenteritis and food poisoning lead to an increase in the rate of passage of food through the digestive tract. Bilirubin bile simply does not have enough time to turn into sterbilin in the large intestine, and then it is simply excreted into the feces. A positive reaction to stercobilin in the feces (a positive result is the norm) would mean that everything in the body is in order.

7. Presence of mucus in the stool. Slime is a jelly-like substance that serves to better slip food. It can not be detected with the naked eye, because it is evenly mixed with feces. The appearance of mucus in the feces indicates the inflammation of the large intestine, as well as the occurrence of infectious diseases: dysentery and salmonellosis.

8. Appearance in the stool of muscle fibers is a consequence of chronic atrophic gastritis and chronic pancreatitis.

9. The presence of fat in the stool is the result of a violation of the pancreas, which produces a special substance - lipase, which breaks down the fat in the intestine.

10. The identification of fecal starch is characteristic of chronic pancreatitis.

11. The presence of leukocytes in the stool. Leukocytes, or white blood cells, are designed to fight infections in the body. If they appear in the stool, then this indicates the occurrence of inflammatory processes in the intestine.

12. Fecal parasites. As a rule, in the study of stool, parasites should not be detected. This suggests that eggs, harmful cysts, helminth larvae are absent. If the result is positive, then some kind of helminths was found in the stool.

13. The appearance of lamblia in feces. Lamblias are parasites that live in the intestines. Exact diagnosis of giardiasis is carried out additionally with the help of special blood tests. The appearance of lamblia in the body is accompanied by severe pain in the abdomen.

So, now we know that the work of the digestive system can be judged on the basis of an analysis called a coprogram. Doctors are urged to spend it every 6 months to track the occurrence of possible diseases in the body.