COMPARISON OF MANUAL AMPLICOR PCR, COBAS AMPLICOR PCR, AND LCX ASSAYSFOR DETECTION OF CHLAMYDIA-TRACHOMATIS INFECTION IN WOMEN BY USING URINE SPECIMENS

We compared the Roche Amplicor PCR, Roche Cobas Amplicor PCR, and Abbo tt LCx assays by using urine specimens for the detection of Chlamydia trachomatis infections in a female population, First-catch urine and e ndocervical swab specimens were collected from a total of 442 patients , Urine specimens were tested by the manual Roche Amplicor PCR, the au tomatic Roche Cobas Amplicor PCR, and the Abbott LCx assays as instruc ted by the manufacturers, For the Cobas Amplicor PCR, the internal con trol protocol was used for every specimen to reveal the presence of po lymerase inhibitors, Cell culture of cervical specimens was used as a reference method, Of 442 patients, 50 (11.3%) were confirmed to have c hlamydial infection, The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of cel l culture with cervical swab specimens were 88 and 100%, respectively, With urine specimens the sensitivity and specificity for the manual A mplicor PCR assay were 100 and 99.7%, respectively; those for the auto matic Cobas Amplicor PCR assay were 94 and 99.2%, respectively; and th ose for the LCx assay were 94 and 100%, respectively, Thus, all amplif ication methods with urine specimens proved to be highly sensitive and specific for the detection of C. trachomatis infection in women, No s tatistically significant differences in the test performances could be demonstrated for specimens from this population, All three amplificat ion techniques with urine specimens proved to be superior to cell cult ure with cervical swab specimens in diagnosing C. trachomatis infectio ns in women.