Vol. 10, Issue 5, Part D (2024)

Background: In recent years, Trichomonas vaginalis has emerged as the most common parasitic cause of sexually transmitted infections and limited data is available on the effective screening technique for diagnosis of Trichomonas vaginalis in resource limited settings. Aim of the present study was to assess the sensitivity and specificity of wet-mount, taking culture as gold standard and to compare the cost-effectiveness of wet-mount and culture for the diagnosis of T. vaginitis.

Materials and Methods: The study was conducted from April 2020 to September 2023 at Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur. It was a prospective cross-sectional wherein 9397 symptomatic women complaining of increased vaginal discharge with or without itching attending Gynecology OPD were tested. Two vaginal swabs were collected, the first swab was used for wet-mount preparation and the second swab was used for culture in Kupferberg medium. The cost of wet-mount and culture were calculated for examining 10,000 vaginal swabs by each method, taking into consideration use of sterile normal saline, slides and coverslips for wet mount and use of stuart’s medium, Kupferberg medium and supplement for culture. The cost incurred upon manpower and infrastructure was not included.

Results: Out of 9397 samples, 73 were positive by wet-mount and additional 3 were positive by culture for T. vaginalis. Overall, T. vaginalis accounted for 0.80% reproductive tract infections. Cost of wet-mount and culture calculated for 10,000 samples was 5000 and 47,700 respectively.

Conclusion: Sensitivity and specificity of wet-mount was 96.20% and 100% respectively and the cost was 8.5 times lower as compared to culture. We found wet-mount a simple and cost-effective method suitable for diagnosis of T. vaginitis in resource limited settings.