Screening tests to detect Chlamydia trachomatis infections have advanced to permit the detection of nucleic acids from organisms. The development of these molecular assays that can detect and amplify the specific nucleic acids from the genes of C. trachomatis are called nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) and they have expanded the range of available specimen types to include noninvasive s...

Female sex workers in Korea can generally be divided into one of two categories, namely, historically rooted brothel-based prostitutes (BBPs) and a newly developed category of freelance prostitutes (FLPs). Though some social differences are known, there have been few reports of distinguishing biological characteristics between the two groups. We examined the chlamydial plasmid loads (CPLs) and ...

I read with interest the article by Ozkan and colleagues1 on glandular lesions of the cervix on thinlayer Pap tests. However, a few clarifications need to be made. The authors commented on the difficulty distinguishing endocervical adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) from high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) involving endocervical glands. Of the 37 ThinPrep® Pap TestsTM (Cytyc Corporation...

The Abbott LCx Neisseria gonorrhoeae assay (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Ill.) uses a ligase chain reaction (LCR) amplification in the LCx probe system for detection of a specific nucleotide sequence in the Opa-encoding gene of N. gonorrhoeae. We evaluated the LCx assay in a comparison with conventional culture employing modified Thayer-Martin media for the detection of N. gonorrhoeae from...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the use of liquid cytology in Pap smears in women with developmental disabilities (DD) for endocervical cell yield and abnormalities, via speculum examination or blind technique. METHODS We used retrospective chart review of gynecological visits by women with DD from October 2002 to November 2005. Cervical cytology screening included speculum examination or blind techniq...

Human papilloma virus (HPV) infection is considered one of the main factors involved in the pathogenesis of endocervical adenocarcinoma. However, the cellular location of HPV in this type of tumor is controversial. We have developed a method to determine the presence of HPV type 16 in endocervical cancer cells using laser capture microdissection followed by DNA extraction and qualitative polyme...