Selective characteristics of commercial nucleic acid amplification assays for the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis in cervical or urethral swabs and urine
| Time (hours) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Molecular method* | Company | Assay | Maximum specimens per run | Hands-on | Total | Amplification control |
| *Ligase chain reaction (LCR), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), strand displacement amplification (SDA), transcription mediated amplification (TMA). | ||||||
| †A full amplification run of 40 specimens will require 2 detection runs on the LCx analyser. | ||||||
| ‡An amplification run of 44 would require 2 sets of rings to be placed into the instrument at staggered time intervals. | ||||||
| LCR | Abbott | LCx | 40† | 1 to 1.5 | 5.5 to 6.25 | No |
| PCR | Roche | Amplicor | 92 | 3 to 3.75 | 6.75 to 8 | Optional |
| Cobas Amplicor | 44‡ | 2 to 2.5 | 5 to 6 | Optional | ||
| SDA | Becton Dickinson | ProbeTec ET | 46 | 1 to 1.25 | 3.1 to 3.8 | Yes |
| TMA | Gen-Probe | Amp CT | 98 | 2.5 | 5.2 | No |
| APTIMA Combo 2 | 98 | 1.6 to 2.25 | 5.3 to 6 | No | ||