Guidelines for the laboratory diagnosis of trichomoniasis in East European countries

Abstract

The laboratory diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections in many Eastern European countries remains suboptimal.The main objective of the present evidence-based guidelines is to provide comprehensive information regarding the laboratory diagnosis of infections caused by Trichomonas vaginalis in East European countries. In particular, the present guidelines recommend: (i) to encourage examination of the wet mounts of vaginal exudates, instead of stained smears, at all clinical settings; (ii) nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) or culture could be employed if no trichomonads are detected on microscopic examination of the wet preparation and there is a strong indication of infection and (iii) the use of NAATs is encouraged in screening, using non-invasive specimens, or high volume testing situations. In the absence of internationally recognized commercial NAAT systems, tests developed in-house should be validated using obtainable international standards and quality assured strictly. Individual East European countries may be required to make minor national adjustments to these guidelines as a result of lack of accessibility to some reagents or equipment, or laws in a specific country.

Isolation, Diagnosis and Cultivation of Trichomonas gallinae from Domestic Pigeon in Kirkuk City, Iraq

“…At room temperature in phosphate-buffered saline, the organism will remain alive for more than 6 hour however, the motility of the organisms becomes significantly attenuated at lower temperatures. Wet mount examination is clearly the most cost effective and simplicity diagnostic test, but the lack of sensitivity contributes to under diagnosis (DomeiKa et al, 2010). The wet mount preparation require at least 104 cell/mL, furthermore incorrect temperature or too much time passing between take the sample and assessment results in loss of motility making difficulty to diagnosis of trichomonads from epithelial cell or lymphocytes that present in the specimen (Garber, 2005).…”

Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis in Pregnant Women in Zanjan, Northwest of Iran

“…This probably causes no missing of any positive sample with this method and indicates that the direct method is valuable if applied properly. Eastern European guideline for laboratory diagnosis of T. vaginalis encourages the utilization of wet mount of vaginal exudates as the first and more important option (15). It has been shown that the positive rates for trichomoniasis with different methods appear to have large confidence intervals because the prevalence of this infection is low in the studied population, in comparison with other genital infections, such as vulvovaginal candidiasis (22.4%) and bacterial vaginitis (21.5%) (16).…”

Inducing Immune Protection Against Trichomonas vaginalis: A Novel Vaccine Approach to Prevent HIV Transmission

“…Diagnosis of cases investigated from clinical suspicion of trichomoniasis are at mercy of low sensitivity of current diagnostic standards as recent evaluations over the past decade have come to find (Lusk et al, 2010;Roth et al, 2011;Seña et al, 2007;Van Der Pol, 2007;Wendel et al, 2002). The most prevalent and most promising techniques will be reviewed below while a more detailed overview of guidelines for laboratory diagnosis and the methodology can be found in Domeika et al (2010).…”

“…Unfortunately bacterial contamination remains an issue as well as lag growth phases of T. vaginalis. Additionally, this method is expensive and time consuming (Domeika et al, 2010) despite the availability of commercial culture systems (InPouch TV system: BioMed Diagnostics). Studies have found sensitivities ranging between 75-83% and specificity near 100% (Huppert et al, 2007;Nye et al, 2009;Wendel et al, 2002).…”