The lack of a rapid, cheap point-of-care test to diagnose infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae has led to overuse of antibiotics and syndromic treatment. In a study published in The Lancet, the diagnostic performance of a new N. gonorrhoeae lateral flow assay (NG-LFA), which had shown promising results in frozen clinical specimens, was assessed in male patients with urethral discharges (n = 200) and female patients with vaginal discharges (n = 200) across five primary health-care facilities in South Africa. A sensitivity of 96.1% and 91.7% was reported in urine and vaginal specimens, respectively, whereas the specificity was 97.2% in urine specimens and 96.3% in vaginal swab samples. Results from this study showed that the novel NG-LFA test has excellent diagnostic performance for the detection of N. gonorrhoeae in symptomatic patients, which substantially exceeded that reported for previous immunoassays (such as nucleic acid amplification tests). The NG-LFA test meets most of the WHO’s criteria for the ideal point-of-care test in low-income countries and might be an important first step to optimize syndromic treatment and antibiotic overuse in N. gonorrhoeae management.

由于缺乏快速、廉价的现场检测来诊断淋病奈瑟菌感染，导致抗生素和综合症治疗的过度使用。在《柳叶刀》上发表的一项研究中，在有尿道分泌物的男性患者 ( n  = 200)中评估了新的淋病奈瑟菌侧流检测 (NG-LFA)的诊断性能，该检测在冷冻临床标本中显示出有希望的结果。 南非五个初级卫生保健机构中出现阴道分泌物的女性患者 ( n = 200)。尿液和阴道样本的敏感性分别为 96.1% 和 91.7%，而尿液样本的特异性为 97.2%，阴道拭子样本的特异性为 96.3%。这项研究的结果表明，新型NG-LFA检测对于检测有症状患者的淋病奈瑟菌具有出色的诊断性能，大大超过了之前报道的免疫检测（例如核酸扩增检测）的诊断性能。 NG-LFA 检测符合世界卫生组织关于低收入国家理想即时检测的大部分标准，并且可能是优化淋病奈瑟菌管理中的综合征治疗和抗生素过度使用的重要第一步。