prevalence, clinical criteria and sociodemographic predictors of trichomonas vaginalis infection in suspected egyptian women, using direct diagnostic techniques

background: the present study aimed to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of vaginal trichomoniasis in women referred to gynecologic clinic in benha university hospital, egypt. methods: two hundred female patients enrolled in the study. vaginal samples were obtained from them and examined for t. vaginalis by wet mount, giemsa stain, acridine orange (ao) stain and culture on modified diamond’s medium. for analysis of accuracy of the methods used, the receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve concept with culture as a gold standard was applied. results: out of 200 patients, t. vaginalis was found in 22 (11%) patients by any of the diagnostic methods used. the accuracy of ao staining comes next to dia­mond’s culture (auc 0.909, sensitivity 81.8%, specificity 100%, ci 0.81-1.0) fol­lowed by giemsa staining (auc 0.835, sensitivity 68.2%, specificity 98.9%, ci 0.72-0.95). the wet mount was the least accurate method (auc 0.795, sensitivity 59.1%, specificity 100%, ci 0.67-0.92). there was no significant association be­tween potentially supposed risk factors and trichomoniasis except patients complain­ing of either dysuria and dyspareunia or back pain and abdominal pain. conclusion: trichomoniasis is a common disease in our community. sociodemo­graphic factors do not seem to affect the prevalence among different egyptian population. for accurate diagnosis, laboratory investigation is essential. a positive wet smear is diagnostic, but negative samples should be examined by methods that are more sensitive.