title: Molecular diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis: Does adjustment for total bacterial load or human cellular content improve diagnostic performance?
abstract: We investigated the utility of quantitative PCR assays for diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis and found that while the best model utilized bacterial copy number adjusted for total bacterial load (sensitivity=98%, specificity=93%, AUC=0.95[95%CI=0.93,0.97]), adjusting for total bacterial or human cell load did not consistently increase the diagnostic performance of the assays.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: erica.plummer@mcri.edu.au.
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Plummer
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Garland
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Bradshaw
authors.affiliation: The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, Australia.
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Law
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Vodstrcil
authors.affiliation: Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Hocking
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Fairley
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; Department of Microbiology, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: S N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Tabrizi
mesh_terms: D039903:Actinobacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification; D058491:Bacterial Load; D005260:Female; D006194:Gardnerella vaginalis / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014621:Vagina / Q000382:microbiology; D016585:Vaginosis, Bacterial / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology
keywords: Bacterial vaginosis; Molecular diagnosis; qPCR