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

E L Plummer; S M Garland; C S Bradshaw; M G Law; L A Vodstrcil; J S Hocking; C K Fairley; S N Tabrizi

doi:10.1016/j.mimet.2016.12.024

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

J Microbiol Methods. 2017 Feb:133:66-68. doi: 10.1016/j.mimet.2016.12.024. Epub 2016 Dec 29.

Authors

E L Plummer¹, S M Garland², C S Bradshaw³, M G Law⁴, L A Vodstrcil⁵, J S Hocking⁶, C K Fairley⁷, S N Tabrizi⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: erica.plummer@mcri.edu.au.
² Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
³ Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, Australia.
⁵ Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁶ Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁷ Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁸ Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.

PMID: 28042056
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.

Keywords: Bacterial vaginosis; Molecular diagnosis; qPCR.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Actinobacteria / isolation & purification
Bacterial Load*
Female
Gardnerella vaginalis / isolation & purification
Humans
Molecular Diagnostic Techniques*
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction*
Sensitivity and Specificity
Vagina / microbiology
Vaginosis, Bacterial / diagnosis*
Vaginosis, Bacterial / microbiology