Poorly performing point-of-care tests for chlamydia: what can be done?

van Dommelen et al 1 ( see page 355 )convincingly show the problems associated with some Chlamydia trachomatis point-of-care (POC) tests that have concerned many of us for some time.2 They have looked at three commercially available Conformitee Europeene (CE)-marked kits and compared the results with the current ‘gold standard’, a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT). Testing was carried out in what might be regarded as optimal conditions by healthcare professionals and even so the authors describe ‘alarmingly poor performance’, particularly in terms of sensitivity and positive predictive value. The results obtained would have led to infections being missed and to those with false-positive results being treated unnecessarily. With growing awareness of the development of antimicrobial …