Syndromic Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infection: Current and Future Demand

Abstract

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major global public health problem, with a significant social burden worldwide. Accurate and appropriate diagnosis and treatment of STIs are important for preventing the transmission of STIs as well as major health consequences of untreated STIs, such as infertility and certain cancer.For the diagnosis of STIs, the application of conventional culture and immunoassays is limited by their low sensitivity and long turnaround time. Nucleic acid amplification tests for STIs allow for syndromic tests for multiple pathogens simultaneously and show high sensitivity with a short turnaround time. This review discusses the characteristics of commercially available multiplex molecular platforms and the features needed in next-generation syndromic tests for STIs.