[Epidemiology and diagnosis of vaginal discharge. First Report (author's transl)].

In 700 patients, 1336 tests of vaginal discharge were performed by culture, wet mount with the phase contrast microscope and the Papanicolaou stain. The diagnosis of yeast is best done by culture. Yeast was found only in 68% of the culture positive cases by the wet mount method and in 47% of the cases by the Papanicolaou stain. Wet mount and Papanicolaou stain results for yeast are therefore only useful if they are positive. In the diagnosis of trichomonas, culture and wet mount are of the same effeciency. The incidence of yeast and trichomonas was dependant upon the age of the patients. In pregnancy and in cases with diabetes, yeast was found more often but no increase of yeast was found in cases on oral contraception. The diagnosis of bacterial mixed infections poses the most difficult problem and can only be improved by expensive culture methods.