Detection of Trichomonas Vaginalis in Vaginal Speciemens from Women by Wet Mount, Culture and PCR

Aim: Trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by Trichomonas vaginalis, affects 180 million people worldwide and causes significant morbidity. Infection with T. vaginalis has been associated with vaginitis, exocervicitis, and urethritis in women. Material and Method: In this study, we aim to investigate the presence of T. vaginalis by using three different methods for comparing the results. Two hundred T. vaginalis isolates taken from swap samples were collected in Medical Faculty, Department of Gynecology, Mustafa Kemal University Polyclinic, and examined genotypically and phenotypically to identify T. vaginalis in Parasitology Department. This research is unique in terms of its contribution to patient treatment, being the first molecular study in Turkey/Hatay to determine Trichomonas (TV) genes stemming from Trichomonas vaginalis strains.R esult: 56 out of 200 patients examined were identified as positive and 24 (42.8%) of these were identified through microscopy, 18 (32,1%) with culture and 24 (42,8%) with PCR. The number of those identified through all these methods is 14 (25%). In this study, difference was calculated using three methods (p=0.022) with Cochran's Q test. When compared with McNemar two by two, no superiority in T. vaginalis diagnosis was found between microscopy and culture (p=0.5), microscopy and PCR (p=0.063), or culture and PCR (p=0.25) methods. Discussion: Culture method is not used in routine laboratory procedures and has contamination risk. PCR method shows directly the parasite of DNAs, and so it is thought to be more reliable compared to the other two methods.