Quantitative Methods for Studies on Vaginal Flora

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Abstract
Three recently described methods for quantitative sampling of the bacterial flora of the vagina (human) were evaluated and none proved satisfactory. In 1/3 of the samples, paired swabs showed large differences between the 2 weights of vaginal secretion collected by this method; the recovery rate of bacteria deliberately added to test swabs was unsatisfactorily low. A calibrated loop gave a wide variation in the amount of secretion collected, due to variations in density and viscosity of the secretion. When secretion was collected with a calibrated pipette, it was often difficult to expel the collected volume from the pipette for testing. A simple weight-based method was devised in which a loop was used to collect an undefined volume of secretion for weighing in a tube of transport medium before homogenization and quantitative bacteriological testing. Initial assessment indicates this to be a satisfactory method for quantitative studies of the vaginal bacterial flora.

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