SCREENING FOR BACTERIAL VAGINOSIS - A NOVEL APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIALNOSE TECHNOLOGY

The AromaScan system was used to analyse vaginal swabs from 68 women a ttending a genitourinary clinic. Using clinical criteria, subjects wer e assessed for bacterial vaginosis. After training the AromaScan syste m to recognise patterns generated from four patients with and four pat ients without bacterial vaginosis, 16 of the 17 (94%) remaining subjec ts were correctly identified as having the condition. The positive pre dictive value of the test was 61.5%. These results indicate that the A romaScan technology may be of value as a screening test for bacterial vaginosis.