title: [Reproducibility of a method to quantify vaginal human immunodeficiency virus viral load].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the reproducibility of a method to collect and quantify HIV nucleic acids in vaginal secretions.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analysed two consecutive vaginal samples collected by direct aspiration from 52 HIV infected women. Nucleic acids were extracted by QIAamp RNA-viral and quantified with a modified Cobas Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Intra-class correlation coefficient between matched samples: 0.99. Differences of pooled HIV DNA+RNa and RNA were <0.40 uLog for 95% of all samples (Bland-Altman plots).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This method is a standard and reproducible assay to detect and measure HIV vaginal viral load.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Microbiología Molecular, Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Alicante, España.
authors.forename: Adelina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gimeno
authors.forename: Joaquín
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Plazas
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Payá
authors.forename: Coral
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Llopis
authors.forename: Vicente
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Boix
authors.forename: Joaquín
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Portilla
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006678:HIV / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014621:Vagina / Q000821:virology*; D019562:Viral Load; D014773:Virology / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult