Comparison of Three NAATs and Culture for Detection of Group B Strep

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) can transiently colonize the vagina, gastrointestinal tract, and urethra. While GBS colonization is usually asymptomatic in healthy adults it can cause disease in newborns including sepsis, meningitis, and pneumonia. The primary strategy for preventing disease in newborns has been intravenous intrapartum (during labor) antibiotic administration for women colonized with GBS. This strategy has been shown to be highly effective. Because administration of intrapartum antibiotics can significantly reduce transmission today, accurate detection remains critical.

Several Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared real-time PCR-based NAATs are currently available for the qualitative detection of GBS in enriched broth cultures which offer laboratories sample-to-answer platforms with standardized processing, specimen extraction, amplification, and detection. These NAATs provide a shorter turnaround time to result, and demonstrate improved GBS detection rates compared to those of culture.

In this education video, originally presented as a webinar in 2019, Dr. David Pride, Director of Molecular Microbiology & Associate Professor of Pathology and Medicine at the University of California, San Diego explores GBS screening and the value of NAAT testing and explains the results of comparison study of three NAATs and culture for detection of Group B Strep.