Table 2.
Lactobacillus detection by culture and qPCR by vaginal washing status
| Lactobacillus detection* | All women (N=272) | No vaginal washing (N=55) | Any vaginal washing (N=217) | p-value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cultivable | |||||||
| Any Lactobacillus† | 73 | (26.8) | 23 | (41.8) | 50 | (23.0) | 0.005 |
| H2O2-producing Lactobacillus | 37 | (13.6) | 12 | (21.8) | 25 | (11.5) | 0.047 |
| Detection by qPCR‡ | |||||||
| L. crispatus | 58 | (21.3) | 18 | (32.7) | 40 | (18.4) | 0.02 |
| L. jensenii | 69 | (25.4) | 17 | (30.9) | 52 | (24.0) | 0.29 |
| L. iners | 244 | (89.7) | 47 | (85.5) | 197 | (90.8) | 0.25 |
| Mean log10 concentration (copies/swab) (SD)§ | |||||||
| L. crispatus | 6.18 | (2.27) | 7.17 | (2.16) | 5.74 | (2.20) | 0.02 |
| L. jensenii | 6.18 | (1.36) | 6.77 | (0.75) | 5.99 | (1.46) | 0.04 |
| L. iners | 7.76 | (1.22) | 7.70 | (1.52) | 7.77 | (1.14) | 0.74 |
Abbreviations: qPCR=quantitative PCR
*
Data are presented as the number of women with the characteristic (%).
†
Rogosa and/or Colombia agar
‡
Categorized as <lower limit of detection and >lower limit of detection.
§
Including only women with samples above the LLD