ASSESSMENT OF THE MICROBIOCENOSIS OF THE ARTIFICAL VAGINA USING THE FEMOFLOR-16 TEST
Abstract
Moderate vaginal dysbiosis is a shift in normal vaginal microbiota composition characterized by increased levels of opportunistic microbes and an ordinary high proportion of lactobacilli that make up 20 to 80 % of the total microbial population of the vagina. Some women with vaginal dysbiosis do not show any symptoms of the infectious inflammatory condition (IIC), which raises the question of whether their dysbiosis should be corrected. We studied the association between some parameters of the microbiota and clinical symptoms of IIC in female patients with moderate vaginal dysbiosis. Participants were distributed into two groups: group 1 included patients with clinical symptoms of IIC (n = 91), group 2 was comprised of asymptomatic patients (n = 44). Mean age was 26.9 ± 6.9 years. Vaginal microbial communities were studied using real-time polymerase chain reaction assays. Levels of six Lactobacillus species were measured in the vaginal discharge: Lactobacillus crispatus, L. iners, L. jensenii, L. gasseri, L. johnsonii, and L. vaginalis. We found that L. iners dominated the microbiota of 45 (49.5 %) symptomatic patients and only 9 (20.5 %) asymptomatic individuals (p = 0.002), unlike L. gasseri that significantly prevailed in the samples of asymptomatic patients: 23 (52.3 %) women vs 21 (23.1 %) in the group of patients with clinical signs of IIC (p = 0.001).