Review of 2005 Public Health Laboratory Network Neisseria gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification tests guidelines.

At the request of the Public Health Laboratory Network (PHLN), the National Neisseria Network (NNN) met to discuss the 2009 PHLN Neisseria gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) guidelines and the need for supplementary testing. A central point of discussion at this NNN meeting, which took place in May 2013, was the potential for N. gonorrhoeae supplementary testing to lead to false-negative results. Data were presented at the meeting that questioned the sensitivity of commonly used in-house supplementary methods as compared with later generation commercial NAAT systems. It was the opinion of the NNN that supplementary testing remains best practice, but that caution should be used when reporting negative results. The NNN recommends that urogenital samples providing a positive result in a screening method and a negative result by a supplemental method should not be reported as negative for N. gonorrhoeae without an appropriate explanatory comment indicating that gonococcal infection cannot be excluded. This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce the whole or part of this work in unaltered form for your own personal use or, if you are part of an organisation, for internal use within your organisation, but only if you or your organisation do not use the reproduction for any commercial purpose and retain this copyright notice and all disclaimer notices as part of that reproduction. Apart from rights to use as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 or allowed by this copyright notice, all other rights are reserved and you are not allowed to reproduce the whole or any part of this work in any way (electronic or otherwise) without first being given the specific written permission from the Commonwealth to do so. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights are to be sent to the Online, Services and External Relations Branch, Department of Health, GPO Box 9848, Canberra ACT 2601, or by email to copyright@health.gov.au.