Clinical Evaluation of Polymerase Chain Reaction Coupled with Quantum Dot Fluorescence Analysis for Diagnosis of Candida Infection in Vulvovaginal Candidiasis Practice

Wenjia Fan,1,2,* Jie Li,1,2,* Lingxia Chen,2 Wenhao Wu,2 Xi Li,3 Weihong Zhong,1 Hongying Pan2 1College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Infectious Disease, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Hangzhou, 310014, People’s Republic of China; 3Laboratory Medicine Center, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Affiliated People’s Hospital, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310014, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Hongying Pan; Weihong Zhong, Tel/Fax +86-571-8589-3602 ; +86-571-88813378, Email hypanzjsrmyy@126.com; whzhong@zjut.edu.cnPurpose: Time-consuming culture methods and wet-mount microscopy (WMM) with low sensitivity have difficulties in diagnosing Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). Rapid and highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction coupled with quantum dot fluorescence analysis (PCR-QDFA) for the diagnosis of VVC has not been reported to date. This study was the first to evaluate the performance of PCR-QDFA for diagnosis of Candida strains in the leukorrhea samples from patients with suspected VVC.Patients and Methods: Leukorrhea samples from all visited patients were taken from the vagina using vaginal swabs by clinicians. We evaluated patients admitted with suspected VVC who completed WMM for diagnosis and reported the diagnostic effectiveness of PCR-QDFA and Candida culture (gold standard) when testing leucorrhea samples.Results: A total of 720 leukorrhea samples from 387 VVC-positive patients and 333 VVC-negative patients were included in this study. Of the 387 leukorrhea samples from the VVC-positive patients, 391 Candida strains were identified by culture. 99.23% (388/391) Candida strains were included in the PCR-QDFA list. The 388 Candida strains belonged to four different species of Candida, including C. albicans (n = 2