Cervical, urine and vaginal specimens for detection of Chlamydia trachomatis by ligase chain reaction in women: A comparison

Screening for Chlamydia trachomatis in women is generally done using only o ne specimen from each patient in order to minimize costs. In this study the aim was to compare the performances of vaginal, cervical and urinary speci mens in a population of young women with sparse symptoms. During 1998, spec imens from 1,001 women at the Departments of Venereology and Youth Health C are at the University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden were examined by both lig ase chain reaction and cell culture for detection of C. trachomatis. The sa mples from the cervix, vagina and urine were tested by ligase chain reactio n, while specimens for cell culture were collected from the cervix and uret hra. The prevalence of genital C trachomatis infections was 5.1%. A single urine specimen had a sensitivity of 80.0%, while the sensitivity of a singl e vaginal specimen was 96.0%. The specificity was 100% for the urine specim ens and 99.4% for the vaginal specimens. The sensitivity and specificity of a single cervical specimen was 92.0% and 99.6%, respectively. Although the urine ligase chain reaction seemed to have the lowest sensitivity of the c ompared specimens for testing of C trachomatis infections in this populatio n, the differences in sensitivity between urine, cervical and vaginal speci mens were not statistically significant.