Molecular diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis: Does adjustment for total bacterial load or human cellular content improve diagnostic performance?

• Published in: Journal of microbiological methods Vol. 133; pp. 66 - 68
• Main Authors: Plummer, E.L., Garland, S.M., Bradshaw, C.S., Law, M.G., Vodstrcil, L.A., Hocking, J.S., Fairley, C.K., Tabrizi, S.N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.02.2017
• Subjects: Actinobacteria - isolation & purification; Bacterial Load; Bacterial vaginosis; Female; Gardnerella vaginalis - isolation & purification; Humans; Molecular diagnosis; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; qPCR; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; Sensitivity and Specificity; Vagina - microbiology; Vaginosis, Bacterial - diagnosis; Vaginosis, Bacterial - microbiology; Bacterial vaginosis; qPCR; Molecular diagnosis
• ISSN: 0167-7012; 1872-8359
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mimet.2016.12.024

We investigated the utility of quantitative PCR assays for diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis and found that while the best model utilized bacterial copy number adjusted for total bacterial load (sensitivity=98%, specificity=93%, AUC=0.95[95%CI=0.93,0.97]), adjusting for total bacterial or human cell load did not consistently increase the diagnostic performance of the assays. •Utility of qPCR assays for molecular diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis is investigated.•Adjusting assays for human cell load does not improve diagnostic performance.•Adjusting for total bacterial load does not consistently improve diagnostic accuracy.•Elevated loads of G. vaginalis and A. vaginae are predictive of bacterial vaginosis.