NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 15 – UK researchers report that automated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an efficient way to detect and type genital herpes in clinical practice.
Dr. Anne Scoular from the Sandyford Initiative, Glasgow, and colleagues note in the February issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections that recent technical advances "have rendered PCR more applicable to routine practice."
They studied 236 patients who presented with clinical symptoms of genital herpes to an inner-city genitourinary clinic. Two swabs were taken from each patient, and evaluated by standard culture and typing methods and by automated PCR using the LightCycler instrument.
Of the 109 patients who tested positive for herpes simplex virus (HVS), 88 were positive by both PCR and standard culture. However, for 21 patients only PCR produced a positive result, the researchers found.
"PCR allowed rapid laboratory confirmation of the diagnosis and increased the overall HVS detection rate by 24%," Dr. Scoular and colleagues conclude.
The UK team found that compared with culture alone, PCR increased the sensitivity of detection in samples from vesicular lesions by 13.3%, in ulcerative lesions by 27.4%, in and crusting lesions by 20.0%.
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