[Reproducibility of a method to quantify vaginal human immunodeficiency virus viral load].
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.
Gimeno
Adelina
A
Laboratorio de Microbiología Molecular, Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Alicante, España.
Plazas
Joaquín
J
Sánchez-Payá
José
J
Llopis
Coral
C
Boix
Vicente
V
Portilla
Joaquín
J
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