A Comparative Study of Positive Culture Rates Between Urethral Discharge and Urinay Sediment for the Diagnosing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae / 대한피부과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Although the culture of urethral discharge using a cutton swab is regarded as one of the most sensitive and reliable diagnostic methods of gonorrhea, it may give pain or diagnostic methods of gonorrhea, it may give pain or discomfort to patients, and its detection rate may be influenced by the examiner's technical ability. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the positive culture rates between ure4thral discharge and urinary sediment for the diagnosing of Neisseria gonorrheae. METHODS: We compared this technique with the culture of urethral discharge using the specimens from 357 male patients with gonococcal infection at VD clinic of Jungku Pvblic Health center in Seoul from Jan 1991 to Jun 1993. RESULTS: The culture of urinary sediment was positive in 339 of 357(94.95), whereas the culture of urethral discharge was positive in 346 of 357(96.95). However, these data have no statistical significance(P<0.05). The obe observed sensitivity and specificity of culture of urinary sediment comjpared to culture of urethral discharge were 97.75 and 90.9%, respectively. The predictive value of positive and negative test compared to the culture of urethral discharge were 99.7% and 55.65, respectively. As our data showed low negative predictive value, a negative culture result of urinary sediment does not always imply a negative culture result of urethral discharge. CONCLUSION: Therefore, at present, the previous method of the culture of urethral discharge is more highly recommended and further studies for this diagnostic and/or new method of gonorrhea based on larger group of patients is encouraged.