| Methods | Organism load distribution of the nucleic acid amplification test positive samples (bacteria per swab, n = 39) | ||||||
| 102 to 103 | 103 to 104 | 104 to 105 | 105 to 106 | 106 to 107 | 107 to 108 | Total (%) | |
| Abbott m2000 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 9/9 | 8/8 | 6/6 | 2/2 | 100 |
| Amplicor | 6/7* | 7/7 | 9/9 | 8/8 | 6/6 | 2/2 | 97.4 |
| HandiLab-C | 1/7 | 1/7 | 1/9 | 3/8 | 1/6 | 0/2 | 17.9 |
*One sample with an organism load of 256 bacteria per swab tested negative by Amplicor but yielded a positive result by Abbott. Each standard curve was consistently generated with eight serial tenfold dilutions of the pCTL12A12 plasmid (10 to 108 per 200 μl) using the decision circle number provided by the Abbott m2000rt instrument. The reproducibility of the quantitative polymerase chain reaction standard curves was performed in duplicate (r2 = 0.998).