Paper Title

Duration of Polymerase Chain Reaction–Detectable DNA After Treatment of Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Trichomonas vaginalis Infections in Women

Keywords

  • polymerase chain reaction
  • pcr
  • dna detection
  • chlamydia trachomatis
  • neisseria gonorrhoeae
  • trichomonas vaginalis
  • nucleic acid amplification test
  • naat
  • post-treatment testing
  • residual dna
  • adolescent women
  • vaginal swabs
  • infection duration
  • kaplan-meier analysis
  • median time to negative result
  • cdc guidelines
  • sti testing
  • treatment efficacy
  • sexual health
  • clinical management
  • public health

Article Type

Original Article

Journal

Sexually Transmitted Diseases External link

Research Impact Tools

DOI

DOI Icon 10.1097/olq.0000000000000102

Publication Info

Volume: 41 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 215–219

Published On

March, 2014

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Abstract

Background To avoid positive results attributable to residual DNA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends avoiding repeat testing with nucleic-acid based tests within 3 weeks after treatment of chlamydial (Chlamydia trachomatis [CT]) or gonococcal (Neisseria gonorrhoeae [GC]) infection. We retrospectively analyzed the duration of detectable DNA from a longitudinal cohort of adolescent women after diagnosis and treatment of infection with CT, GC, or Trichomonas vaginalis (TV). Methods Vaginal swabs were obtained weekly from young women for up to 12 weeks (observation period) after treatment of CT, GC and TV infections. Swabs were tested using a commercially available first generation nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) for CT and GC, and a laboratory developed NAAT for TV. Kaplan-Meier statistics were used to estimate median time to the first negative DNA-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) result. Results Observation periods were available for analysis for 195, 82 and 102 treatments for CT, GC, and TV infection, respectively. Median time to a first negative PCR result for CT, GC, and TV was 9 (range 0–84), 6 (0–76), and 7 (0–84) days, and by day 21, 89%, 95%, and 85% were negative, respectively. Conclusions Data from this retrospective analysis indicate that greater than 85% of these young women did not have detectable CT, GC, or TV DNA by day 21 post-treatment. This data may be useful to clinicians for patient management and post-treatment testing purposes.

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