INTRODUCTION The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended using a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) for diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) but there is a lack of data on NAAT cost-effectiveness. METHODS We conducted a prospective cohort study that included all patients with an AFB smear-positive respiratory specimen at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA, USA bet...

BACKGROUND Neisseria gonorrhea is the etiological agent of the sexually transmitted disease (STD) gonorrhea, and primarily infects the mucous membranes of the urethra, endocervix, pharynx or rectum of females which may result in substantial morbidity. N. gonorrhea also causes disseminated infection, with complications that may result in ectopic pregnancy, tubal infertility, chronic pelvic pain ...

Despite the advances made in past 30 years laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB), only a small portion overall world population has benefitted. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended use nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) to detect TB instead smear microscopy, since they can with greater precision, particularly patients paucibacillary disease and individuals living HIV. A broa...

The most common direct detection methods are isolation or in-vitro cultivation, electron microscopy, immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (antigen-ELISA), nucleic-acid hybridisation (NAH), macroand microarrays and the various techniques of nucleic acid amplification, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or the isothermal amplification method...

BACKGROUND Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) is the most common cause of bacterial sexually transmitted diseases (STD) worldwide. While commercial nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) are available for Ct, none are rapid or inexpensive enough to be used at the point-of-care (POC). Towards the first Ct POC NAAT, we developed a microfluidic assay that simultaneously interrogates nine Ct loci in 20 mi...

HIV-positive women are at high risk for HPV-related disease as a result of both behavioural and biological factors. More advanced HIV infection is associated with increased risk, while combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) reduces but does not eliminate the excess risk compared to HIV-negative women. We sought to evaluate the clinical utility of screening HIV-positive women using Cepheid Ge...

Excessive utilization of laboratory diagnostic testing leads to increased health care costs. We evaluated criteria to reduce unnecessary nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) for viral pathogens in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from adults. This is a single-center split retrospective observational study with a screening cohort from 2008 to 2012 and a validation cohort from 2013. Adults ...

We present the updated International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI) guideline for the management of non-gonococcal urethritis in men. This guideline recommends confirmation of urethritis in symptomatic men before starting treatment. It does not recommend testing asymptomatic men for the presence of urethritis. All men with urethritis should be tested for Chlamydia trachom...

Nucleic acid amplification techniques are commonly used currently to diagnose viral diseases and manage patients with this kind of illnesses. These techniques have had a rapid but unconventional route of development during the last 30 years, with the discovery and introduction of several assays in clinical diagnosis. The increase in the number of commercially available methods has facilitated t...

INTRODUCTION The use of a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) as a test of cure after treatment is subject to discussion, as the presence of C. trachomatis nucleic acids after treatment may be prolonged and intermittent without presence of infectious bacteria. We used cell culture to assess if a positive RNA- or DNA-based NAAT after treatment indicates the presence of viable C. trachomatis. ...