Performance of four commercial kits for laboratory diagnosis of urogenital mollicute infection

Abstract

We have empirical evidence for the unsatisfactory performance of the most accessible commercial kits for mollicute culture. We aimed to evaluate the performance of the 4 commercial kits available for diagnosis of urogenital mollicute infections, compared with culture media (CMMC) produced in our research laboratory. We demonstrated that the NewProv kit had a sensitivity of 17% for Ureaplasma sp. and 33% for Mycoplasma hominis. The Laborclin kit presented a sensitivity of 25% for Ureaplasma sp., although M. hominis isolation was not observed during its evaluation. The kits from bioMérieux and International Microbio/Elitech each presented a sensitivity of 100% compared to the CMMC media. We also observed an important level of mollicute resistance (37.5%) to the main antibiotics used in treatment. The lack of diagnostic sensitivity of some commercial systems has consequences for antibiotic resistance, since it may lead to inadequate treatment of urogenital mollicute infections.