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

EL Plummer; SM Garland; CS Bradshaw; MG Law; LA Vodstrcil; JS Hocking; CK Fairley; SN Tabrizi

Journal article

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

EL Plummer, SM Garland, CS Bradshaw, MG Law, LA Vodstrcil, JS Hocking, CK Fairley, SN Tabrizi

Journal of Microbiological Methods | ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.mimet.2016.12.024

Abstract

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.

University of Melbourne Researchers

Erica Plummer Author

Suzanne Wark Author

Catriona Bradshaw Author

Lenka Vodstrcil Author

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Grants

Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

Funding Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Jimmy Twin for performing the laboratory work. We would also like to acknowledge Katherine Fethers, Carol Hopkins, Lisa Kennedy, and Glenda Fehler, as well as Anna Morton, Margaret Morris and Lorna Moss and the staff at Melbourne Sexual Health Centre for their contribution to the clinical cohorts from which the specimens were obtained from. The research presented was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Project Grant (APP1020457) and Program Grants (#568971 and #1071269). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.