A new slide latex agglutination test for the diagnosis of acute Candida vaginitis.

Two hundred two slide latex agglutination (SLA) tests were performed on 137 women attending a vaginitis clinic to evaluate the efficacy of this new test in diagnosing acute symptomatic Candida vaginitis. In 77 patients with acute Candida vaginitis, the SLA test revealed a positive reaction in 56 patients, reflecting a sensitivity of 72.7%, lower than that observed with the 10% potassium hydroxide microscopic examination (sensitivity 90%). False negative SLA reactions could not be accounted for by lower numbers of yeast cultured from the vagina or by the presence of nonalbicans strains of Candida. Following successful antimycotic therapy, the SLA test promptly became negative in all mycologically negative patients. Application of the SLA test in asymptomatic healthy control women revealed extremely few false positive reactions for Candida (5.6%). This easily performed and rapid slide latex agglutination test should provide a useful adjunct to the diagnosis of Candida vaginitis, but only for physicians who do not routinely perform microscopy on vaginal secretions.