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Bacterial vaginosis – a laboratory and clinical diagnostics enigma
Author(s) -
FORSUM URBAN,
HALLÉN ANDERS,
LARSSON P. G.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0463.2005.apm1130301.x
Subject(s) - bacterial vaginosis , medicine , scoring system , intensive care medicine , population , medical physics , gynecology , environmental health
Diagnosing bacterial vaginosis (BV) has long been based on the clinical criteria of Amsel et al., whereby three of four defined criteria must be satisfied. Though there are other criteria and scoring methods which function well in comparison (i.e. Nugent scoring), it is not certain that they will always identify the same category of patients. Point‐of‐care methods based on various combinations of microbial products, presence of RNA, or more complex laboratory instrumentations such as sensor arrays, have also been introduced for the diagnosis of BV. No method for diagnosing BV can at present be regarded as the best. It could be that – based partly on tacit knowledge on the part of the clinical investigators scoring in the clinic – various scoring systems have been chosen to fit a particular BV‐related problem in a particular population. In this review we critically examine these pertinent issues influencing clinical scoring and laboratory diagnostics of BV.