Implications of trichomonas vaginalis nucleic acid amplification testing on medical training and practice

摘要

We read with great interest Ginocchio and colleagues' recent study on the prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis infection and coinfection with Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonor-rhoeae (1). Based on results from nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) of discarded urogenital samples from 7,593 U.S. women aged 18 to 89 years (recruited in 21 states; the testing protocol included the use of the APTIMA Combo 2 assay from Gen-Probe), the overall prevalences for T. vaginalis, C. trachomatis, andN. gonorrhoeae were estimated to be 8.7, 6.7, and 1.7, respectively. The study found that the highest T. vaginalis prevalence was among women aged 40 years and older and that the coinfection rates were 1.3 for C. trachoma-tis/T. vaginalis, 0.61 for C. trachomatis/N. gonorrhoeae, and 0.24 for N. gonorrhoeae/T. vaginalis (1).