English

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Bacterial vaginosis is of special public health concern in India because of high burden of reproductive and pregnancy related morbidity. Early diagnosis and treatment might be useful in prevention of complications and can only be achieved by accurate, reproducible and inexpensive method. The purpose of the present study was to estimate the prevalence of Bacterial Vaginosis in rural setup and to compare the diagnostic accuracy of Amsel’s criteria and Culture with Nugent’s scoring system in diagnosis of Bacterial Vaginosis (BV). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two high vaginal swabs were collected from posterior fornix of women aged 18-45yrs complaining of abnormal vaginal discharge under aseptic precautions and were subjected to direct microscopy and culture. RESULTS: The present study included 204 cases of abnormal vaginal discharge. In comparison with Nugent’s criteria the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of Amsel’s criteria were 78.72%, 92.35%, 75.51% and 93.54%. The culture was 42.55% sensitive and 92.99% specific, the positive predictive value was 64.51% and the negative predictive value was 84.39%. We diagnosed Bacterial vaginosis in 47/204 (23.03%) cases by Nugent’s method, 49/204 (24.01%) cases by Amsel’s criteria and in 31/204 (15.91%) cases by culture.