6
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Stability Studies on Dry Swabs and Wet Mailed Swabs for Detection of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Aptima Assays

      , , , , ,
      Journal of Clinical Microbiology
      American Society for Microbiology

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          ABSTRACT

          The Aptima Combo 2 (AC2) and Aptima CT (ACT) (Hologic Inc., San Diego, CA) are nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) that detect Chlamydia trachomatis . AC2 also detects Neisseria gonorrhoeae . Storage and temperature conditions may impact the utility of NAATs in some settings and screening programs. We evaluated specimen stability for use beyond the Aptima package insert specifications for temperature and duration of storage (between 2°C and 30°C and 60 days, respectively) in two studies: (i) dry C. trachomatis -seeded swabs were used with ACT after storage at 4°C, 23°C, or 36°C for up to 84 days and (ii) swabs seeded with C. trachomatis and N. gonorrhoeae and then placed in transport medium were tested with AC2, after being mailed via the U.S. Postal Service to three different sites. Prolonged storage of samples had no effect, and samples stored at 4°C, 23°C, and 36°C for up to 84 days yielded comparable ACT positivities, although there was a drop in signal intensity for virtually all specimens under all storage/shipping conditions after day 21. In the mailing study, 80%, 52% and 29% of seeded swabs were exposed to temperatures of >30°C during three rounds in transit, and 2% reached temperatures of >40°C. No evidence of signal degradation in the AC2 assay for detection of C. trachomatis or N. gonorrhoeae was observed, although some mailed swabs took more than 5 weeks to reach the laboratory site. These two studies support the potential use of swabs at temperatures above 36°C and storage beyond 60 days and provide confidence regarding this commercially available NAAT for testing of specimens after mailing.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Journal of Clinical Microbiology
          J. Clin. Microbiol.
          American Society for Microbiology
          0095-1137
          1098-660X
          February 22 2017
          March 2017
          March 2017
          January 11 2017
          : 55
          : 3
          : 971-977
          Article
          10.1128/JCM.02235-16
          5328466
          28077695
          01d63d08-1328-4cd6-a421-99e1665a58a8
          © 2017
          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article