DNA Assay Detects Variant Strain of Chlamydia

An amplified DNA assay can detect variant Chlamydia trachomatis (vCT).

Molecular testing has become the standard of care in diagnosing chlamydial infection due to the high sensitivity of the tests for detecting the organism. For the past decade, laboratories in Sweden have used nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) to diagnose C trachomatis infections. These NAAT tests use the cryptic plasmid (a non-chromosomal genetic element found in most C. trachomatis strains) as the target area.

Recent reports in Eurosurveillance attribute decreases of 25% in infection incidence in Sweden due to the inability of certain molecular diagnostic tests to detect the vCT. vCT infection has also recently been reported in Denmark and Oslo, Norway.

BD Diagnostics (Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA), a segment of BD, announced that testing performed using the BD ProbeTec Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) amplified DNA assay confirms the product's ability to detect this organism analytically. The assay detects vCT with equivalent analytical sensitivity levels to other known circulating CT strains.

"We rely on our testing methods to be highly accurate,” said Henrik Westh, M.D., D.M.Sc. associate clinical research professor, Hvidovre Hospital (Copenhagen, Denmark). "The potential inability to detect the vCT is a significant concern to us as the vCT endemic is only a few miles from us, and a single case has just been identified in Copenhagen. Our laboratory testing of the vCT using the BD ProbeTec System revealed that the vCT was as easily detected as the ‘wildtype' CT.” Wildtype is the term for the common circulating strain of an organism.

C trachomatis is a sexually transmitted organism, infecting more than three million people annually in the United States at a cost of more than US$2.0 billion per year. Most young women who become infected never experience symptoms that would prompt them to see a doctor. Left untreated, up to 40% of infected women develop pelvic inflammatory disease, and of these cases, 17% become infertile, 17% develop chronic pain, and 9% have a potentially life-threatening tubal pregnancy.


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