Abstract
Purpose
To evaluate a real-time PCR-based technique to quantify bacteria associated with aerobic vaginitis (AV) as a potential test.
Methods
Vaginal samples from 100 women were tested by wet-mount microscopy, gram stain and quantitative real-time PCR targeting Enterobacteriacea, Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., Escherichia coli, Streptococcus agalactiae, S. aureus; Lactobacillus spp. AV diagnosis obtained by wet-mount microscopy was used as reference.
Results
Some level of AV was diagnosed in 23 (23.7 %) cases. Various concentrations of Enterobacteriacea, Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp. were detected an all patients. Enterococcus spp. were detected in 76 (78.3 %) cases. Summarized concentrations of aerobes were tenfold higher in AV-positive compared to AV-negative cases [7.30lg vs 6.06lg (p = 0.02)]. Concentrations of aerobes in severe, moderate and light AV cases did not vary significantly (p = 0.14). Concentration of lactobacilli was 1000-fold lower in AV-positive cases compared to normal cases (5.3lg vs 8.3lg, p < 0.0001). Streptococcus spp. dominated in the majority of AV-positive cases [19/22 (86.4 %) samples]. The relation of high loads of aerobes to the low numbers of Lactobacilli are a reliable marker for the presence of AV and could substitute microscopy as a test.
Conclusions
PCR may be a good standardized substitution for AV diagnosis in settings where well-trained microscopists are lacking.
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Notes
Logarithm to the base ten.
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This study was funded by Central Research Institute for Epidemiology, Moscow, Russia, and Femicare, Tienen, Belgium.
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Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration.
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Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
This work was an award winning presentation at the 1st ISIDOG/9th ESIDOG European conference in Riga, 29th Oct–1st Nov 2015.
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Rumyantseva, T.A., Bellen, G., Savochkina, Y.A. et al. Diagnosis of aerobic vaginitis by quantitative real-time PCR. Arch Gynecol Obstet 294, 109–114 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-015-4007-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-015-4007-4