Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 08 1995, 2042-2047, Vol 33, No. 8
Copyright © 1995 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Detection of Chlamydia trachomatis infection in urine samples from men and women by ligase chain reaction

GJ van Doornum, M Buimer, M Prins, CJ Henquet, RA Coutinho, PK Plier, S Tomazic- Allen, H Hu and H Lee
Department of Public Health, Municipal Health Service of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The suitability of urine specimens from women and men for the detection of Chlamydia trachomatis infection by a ligase chain reaction (LCR)- based assay with plasmid primers was examined with a group of patients attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Cervical specimens from 15 of 237 (6.3%) women tested positive for C. trachomatis by cell culture. Of the 25 (10.5%) female urine samples that tested positive by the plasmid-LCR assay, 13 were obtained from cervical culture-positive women. Nine of the 12 plasmid- LCR-positive urine samples from cervical culture-negative women were confirmed to be positive by a second LCR assay with primers based on chromosomal DNA. Urethral specimens from 24 of 258 (9.3%) men were positive for C. trachomatis infection by cell culture. Of the 25 (9.7%) urine samples that tested positive by plasmid-LCR, 20 were from culture- positive men. All five of the LCR-positive urine samples from culture- negative men were confirmed to be positive by the LCR with chromosomal DNA primers. Relative to cell culture, testing by plasmid-LCR analysis of male urine samples had a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 97.9%; after resolution of discordant samples, these values were 86.2 and 100%, respectively. In the study with women, the sensitivities of plasmid-LCR analysis of cervical and urine specimens in comparison with cervical cell culture were 93.3 and 86.7%, respectively. After resolution of discrepant samples, the sensitivities of the plasmid-LCR test for cervical swabs and female urine samples were 96.3 and 92.6%, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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