Can A Rapid Sti Sexual Health Service Reduce Gonococcal Culture Testing Without Reducing Culture Sensitivity? A Service Evaluation.

Background The Panther (Hologic Inc) was introduced to our specialist sexual health service at point-of-care, which could provide a rapid gonorrhoea (GC) and chlamydia (CT) nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) result within 4 hours. GC-culture testing was limited to those testing GC NAAT-positive and/or to those who received treatment before the NAAT result was available. We hypothesised that this would reduce the number of cultures and cost, but not reduce the sensitivity of GC-culture. GC isolates are required for susceptibility testing to optimise antimicrobial therapy and for Anti-microbial Resistance surveillance. Methods We obtained and compared data on NAATs taken 12 months before and 12 months after the introduction of rapid testing in November 2019. We linked GC-cultures taken within 2 weeks of the NAAT. Chi-square was used to compare proportions. Results 23,588 CT/GC NAATs were taken before and 21,588 after the introduction of the new rapid STI service of which 684(2.9%) and 766(3.5%) were GC-positive respectively. GC cultures dropped from 10881 to 6022 after November 2019 with the proportion of cultures to NAATs decreasing from 0.46 to 0.28 (p 95% in previous 8 months. Conclusions Implementation of the rapid STI service resulted in fewer GC-culture specimens being taken which reduced the cost of GC-culture but with no loss in GC-culture sensitivity overall.