Screening for asymptomatic gonorrhea in males: a comparison of four techniques.

A total of 729 asymptomatic men were screened for gonococcal urethritis with four techniques: culture of urethral specimens, culture of first-catch urine sediment (FCUS), an enzyme immunoassay method (Gonozyme, Abbot Laboratories) for detection of gonococcal antigen in urethral specimens (EIA-Sb) and first-catch urine sediment (EIA-FCUS). The positivity rates of the aforementioned techniques were 0.13%, 0%, 2.33%, and 0.82%. In view of reduction of time and patients' discomfort as well as the closely comparable positivity rate (p less than 0.05) associated with the use of the EIA-FCUS technique, the latter method appears to be the simplest, most practical and reliable diagnostic tool for screening asymptomatic gonococcal urethritis.