In accordance to the importance of gonorrhea, all microbiological laboratories have the responsibility to identify the gonococcal isolates and their resistance profiles. Several methods have been
applied to detect this pathogen. The simplest method is direct
microscopy which is rapid and highly specific for the detection of
gonococci in urethral discharges from male patients. However, this
method is insensitive and nonspecific for rectal and pharyngeal
specimens and specimens from asymptomatic patients. At present,
cultivation is still regarded as the gold standard. This method has a
high specificity for detection of the viable pathogen and has the
advantage that one can perform susceptibility testing. Nevertheless,
the method has a low sensitivity, especially in clinical specimens
which have a long transport time. As a result, the noncultivation
has become the method of choice for these fastidious bacteria.
Various procedures have been developed to detect gonococcal disease. Nucleic acid-based techniques such as nucleic acid-based
hybridization testing or nucleic acid-based amplification assay have
been described(2). Several commercial kits based on nucleic acid
detection have been promoted such as Cobas Amplicor test,
LightCycler 16S rRNA test(3, 4). However, most commercial kits
have a high false positive rate due to commensalNeisseria species
and have a high cost. Another important disadvantage of these kits
is that they do not address the need for surveillance and control of
the increasing spread of antimicrobial resistance of gonococci