Chlamydia trachomatis culture
(CTC)

Sample type:

• Chlamydia is an intracellular pathogen.

• Obtain swab specimens containing epithelial cells of conjunctiva, cervix, posterior nasopharynx, throat, rectum, or urethra.

Uses:

• Aid in the diagnosis of infections, including medical/legal cases caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (eg, cervicitis, trachoma, conjunctivitis, PID, pneumonia, urethritis, nongonococcal urethritis, pneumonitis, and sexually-transmitted diseases).

Precautions:

• Clean the area of inflammatory cells and then attempt to use another swab to scrape epithelial cells for culturing.

• Direct immunofluorescence techniques and nucleic acid amplification assays are available to detect Chlamydia in clinical specimens.

• Urine culture for Chlamydia is not a sensitive procedure and generally should not be done.

Interfering Factors:

• Culture may be negative in the presence of Chlamydia infection.

• The sensitivity of culture is only 70% to 90% because C trachomatis may not survive transit to the laboratory and may lead to false negative.

Pre analytical errors:

1. Inadequate sampling.

2. Low numbers of organisms in asymptomatic infection.

Corrective action:

1. Adequate sampling.

2. Large numbers of organisms in asymptomatic infection.

Post analytical errors:

1. Failure in reporting.

2. Erroneous validation of analytical data.

3. Improper data entry.

Corrective action:

1. Write correct report.

2. All analytical data should be valid.

3. Proper data entrty.