Adequate Cultures from Clinical Isolates of Trichomonas vaginalis for Molecular Studies of Virulence

Background and Aim Trichomonas vaginalis is a sexually transmitted eukaryotic extracellular parasite; it adheres to genital epithelia (1). Symptoms are absent in nearly half of the infected women and most of the infected men (2, 3), which suggests differences in aggressivity among isolates. The infection may result in vaginitis, pregnancy complications like low birth weight, cervical neoplasty (4, 5) and increased risk of HIV transmission and replication (6, 7). Trichomoniasis is not diagnosed in public hospitals in Peru because it requires careful culture and sometimes several days of observation. Women with symptoms like itching and odorous discharges, also common in bacterial vaginosis, are treated with metronidazol (8).