July 5, 2017 – Making the Diagnosis

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Anchor lead: A new test may allow women to help themselves when it comes to vaginitis, Elizabeth Tracey reports

More and more testing involves people taking samples themselves, and a new test for vaginitis developed by Charlotte Gaydos, a sexually transmitted infections expert at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues is yet one more. Gaydos says the new test can diagnose the three most common causes of vaginitis.

Gaydos: This is a good thing because number one, a woman can collect her own sample. The samples collected by the doctor gave the same results as those collected by the individual woman. It saves doctors a lot of time. They can take one swab and send it to the lab. It does take a couple of hours for the test to do so they wouldn’t get an immediate result, however it can save them a lot of time because normally there’s a lot of little tests that doctors have to do. I call it one stop shopping. :29

Gaydos notes that previous diagnosis could involve several office tests and a sample being sent out to a lab, possibly taking a few days and causing delays in treatment. She believes the new test will also improve accuracy. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.