TABLE 3.

Nucleic acid detection tests (including DNA probe tests, direct probe and amplified probe detection)

	Test	Description	Sensitivity/specificity*
DNA probe test for culture confirmation	AccuProbe Neisseria gonorrhoeae culture confirmation test (Gen-Probe, USA)	Detection of species-specific ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences using a chemiluminescent acridinium ester-labelled, single-stranded gonococcal rRNA	100% sensitive,100% specific (194 strains tested) (51)
Detection of N gonorrhoeae directly from clinical specimens types (urine, endocervical swab [women], urethral swabs [men]; some kits can use vaginal swab)
Direct probe	Gen-Probe PACE2 PACE2C (Gen-Probe, USA)	Detection of a specific sequence of Chlamydia trachomatis or N gonorrhoeae rRNA using a chemiluminescent acridinium ester-labelled DNA probe	96.3% sensitive, 98.8% specific (33)
	Hybrid Capture II assay (Digene Corporation, USA)	RNA hybridization probes specific for genomic DNA and cryptic plasmid DNA sequences of C trachomatis and N gonorrhoeae	93% sensitive (94 specimens tested) 98.5% specific 1263 specimens tested) (27)
Nucleic acid amplification tests	Roche AMPLICOR (Roche Diagnostic Systems, USA)	Detection of a 201 base pair sequence in the cytosine methyltransferase gene	96% specific, 100% sensitive (618 samples) (52)
	Becton Dickinson BD ProbeTec (BD Biosciences, USA)	Detection of a DNA sequence in the multicopy pilin gene-inverting protein homologue	100% sensitive and specific in a limited sampling of 57 specimens (27)
	NucliSens Basic (Organon Teknika, The Netherlands)	Detection of 16S rRNA of N gonorrhoeae using RNA amplification	97.9% sensitive, 98.7% specific (216 specimens tested) (32)
	Abbott LCx (Abbott Laboratories, USA) No longer available in Canada	Detection of a 48 base pair sequence in the opa genes of N gonorrhoeae	97.3% to 100% sensitive, 97.8% to 100% specific (8)

^*Most studies use culture identification as the gold standard to establish the sensitivity and specificity values