Vulvovaginal-Swab or First-Catch Urine Specimen To Detect Chlamydia trachomatis in Women in a Community Setting?
Year: 2006
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Screening for chlamydia in women is widely recommended. We evaluated the performance of two nucleic acid amplification tests for detecting Chlamydia trachomatis in self-collected vulvovaginal-swab and first-catch urine specimens from women in a community setting and a strategy for optimizing the sensitivity of an amplified enzyme immunoassay on vulvovaginal-swab specimens. We tested 2,745 paired vulvovaginal-swab and urine specimens by PCR (Roche Cobas) or strand displacement amplification (SDA; Becton Dickinson). There were 146 women infected with chlamydia. The assays detected 97.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 93.1 to 99.2%) of infected patients with vulvovaginal-swab specimens and 91.8% (86.1 to 95.7%) with urine specimens. We tested 2,749 vulvovaginal-swab specimens with both a nucleic acid amplification test and a polymer conjugate-enhanced enzyme immunoassay with negative-gray-zone testing. The relative sensitivities obtained after retesting specimens in the negative gray zone were 74.3% (95% CI, 62.8 to 83.8%) with PCR and 58.3% (95% CI, 46.1 to 69.8%) with SDA. In community settings, both vulvovaginal-swab and first-catch urine specimens from women are suitable substrates for nucleic acid amplification tests, but enzyme immunoassays, even after negative-gray-zone testing, should not be used in screening programs.
Source: Journal of Clinical Microbiology
DOI: 10.1128/jcm.01060-06
Authors: Sue Skidmore, Paddy Horner, Alan Herring, Joanne Sell, Ian Paul, Jane Thomas, E. Owen Caul, Matthias Egger, Anne McCarthy, Emma Sanford, Chris Salisbury, John Macleod, Jonathan A. C. Sterne, Nicola Low
Language: English
Subfield: Microbiology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2159407517