Improvement of Bacteriological Method of Diagnostics of Gonorrhea: Experience of Ternopil Regional Clinical Dermatovenereological Dispensary, Ukraine
Introduction. One of the most studied and commonly occurring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the world is gonorrhea, the "gold standard" of laboratory diagnostics of which is cultural diagnostics. Purpose. To conduct, for the first time in Ukraine, the external evaluation of the quality of the updated standard operating procedure of cultural diagnostics of N. gonorrhoeae to obtain "live" isolates with further study of their antibiotic resistance. Materials and methods. The swabs taken for N. gonorrhoeae culture were immediately placed in the non-nutritive transport environment - Amies Agar Gel Medium with charcoal (Copan Diagnostics Inc., Brescia, Italy). All samples were transported to the laboratory department of the Ternopil Regional Clinical Dermatovenereological Dispensary, where they were plated on a Petri dish with selective chocolate agar TM+PolyViteX VCAT3 media (bioMérieux, Marcy-l’Étoile, France), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. External quality control was conducted at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Gonorrhea and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (Örebro, Sweden). Results and discussion. The results of culture studies of clinical strains of N. gonorrhoea isolated from 141 symptomatic patients were characterized by a high quality; the overall incidence of confirmed gonococcal isolates was 96.5% (136/141). Conclusion. Use of non-nutritive transport environment Amies Agar Gel Medium with charcoal (Copan Diagnostics Inc., Brescia, Italy) and selective chocolate agar TM+PolyViteX VCAT3 media (bioMérieux, Marcy-l’Étoile, France) lets to achieve reliable performance. This technique can be used in laboratory practice in Ukraine to conduct standard diagnostics of gonorrhea and studies on the sensitivity of N. gonorrhoeae to antibacterial drugs.