Take-Home Test Improves Screening for Venereal Disease

Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection in adolescent girls and women in the United States and guidelines recommend women be tested again, three months after treatment.

In a study conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention (CDC; Atlanta, GA, USA), women were encouraged to get retested for Chlamydia after a first round of treatment by letting them do that testing at home. In three cities, 880 participants were recruited from STD and 412 from family planning clinics. Females aged 16 years or older who were treated for Chlamydia infection were randomly assigned to the home group, where swab collection kits were mailed to their home or the clinic group who made clinic appointments for rescreening at three months after treatment, with reminder calls about two weeks before the scheduled rescreening date.

The scientists used the only US Food and Drug Administration (FDA; Silver Springs, MA, USA) cleared assay for Chlamydia infection nucleic acid from vaginal swab specimen. Specimens were transported or mailed to the laboratory in the Gen-Probe (San Diego, CA, USA) specimen collection kit. Among women going to family planning clinics, 41% assigned to take the test at home did so, while 21% of those asked to come back into the office returned for testing. At STD clinics, those numbers were 27% versus 19%, again in favor of home testing.

In women enrolled from family planning clinics, rescreening rates were almost twice as high in the home group as in the clinic group. In various subpopulations defined by demographic and behavioral characteristics, rescreening rates were consistently improved by use of home-based specimen collection, suggesting the potential for a broad application of this tool in facilitating Chlamydia infection rescreening. The APTIMA COMBO 2 assay used in the study for testing for Chlamydia infection is a product of Aptima Inc. (Woburn, MA, USA). The study was published in August 2011 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Related Links:
US Centers for Disease Control
Gen-Probe
Aptima Inc.