Comparison of vaginal lactobacilli and Lactobacillus species discrimination using classic methods and polymerase chain reaction

: The aim of this study was to identify the vaginal lactobacilli in the species level and to investigate the concordance between classical methods and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the typing of these isolates. Vaginal swab samples which have been collected from women who were admitted to the outpatient clinics of Gynecology Department of our hospital, were examined by standard microbiological methods and additionally were inoculated into selective lactobacilli media. Of 200 subjects, 59.5% have had normal vaginal flora, 31% were diagnosed as bacterial vaginosis and 9.5% as vaginal candidiasis. The lactobacilli isolation rates of these groups were found 76.5%, 45.2% and 78.9%, respectively. A total of 160 facultative anaerobic Lactobacillus strains were isolated from 134 (67%) of the swab samples. Of these, 90.6% were identified into species level by classical methods, and the most frequently isolated species in our study was found as L. gasseri (40%), followed by L. delbrueckii (18%). The comparative study was performed only for 66 isolates, and 58 of them (87.8%) were grouped into 7 species while 8 have not been identified by classical methods, however, all of 66 isolates were successfully grouped into 4 species by PCR. Fourty-five of 66 strains have been found to be identical by means of classical methods and PCR, and the concordance between the methods were found 68.2 percent.