Sampling for vaginal candidosis: how good is it?

In defined patient populations attending a genitourinary medicine department, screening for vaginal candidosis resulted in 26.3% positive rate. Microscopy using Gram-stained slide was useful in early diagnosis and resulted in the detection of 64.8% of symptomatic cases. Samples from the anterior fornix proved most sensitive for culture diagnosis while the left lateral vaginal wall proved least sensitive (positive predictive value 0.88 cf 0.81).