Avaliação comparativa da eficácia dos meios de diagnóstico das vulvovaginites: implantação de tecnologia no ensino prático da ginecologia

Inaccurate diagnosis of vulvovaginitis generates inadequate treatments that cause damages women's health. Objective: evaluate the effectiveness of methods when diagnosing vulvovaginitis. Method: a cross-sectional study was performed with 200 women who complained about vaginal discharge. Vaginal smear was collected for microbiological tests, considering the gram stain method as gold standard. The efficacy of the available methods for diagnosis of vaginal discharge was assessed (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value). Data were inserted to Graphpad Prism 6, for statistical analysis. Results: the following results were obtained: wet mount for vaginal candidiasis: sensitivity = 31%; specificity = 97%; positive predictive value (PPV) = 54%; negative predictive value (NPV) =93%; accuracy = 91%. Wet mount for bacterial vaginosis: sensitivity = 80%; specificity =95%; positive predictive value (PPV) = 80%; negative predictive value (NPV) = 95%; accuracy = 92%. Syndromic approach for bacterial vaginosis: sensitivity = 95%; specificity=43%; positive predictive value (PPV) =30%; negative predictive value (NPV) = 97%; accuracy = 54%. Syndromic approach for vaginal candidiasis: sensitivity = 75%; specificity =91%; positive predictive value (PPV) = 26%; negative predictive value (NPV) = 98%; accuracy = 90%. Pap smear for vaginal candidiasis: sensitivity = 68%, specificity = 98%; positive predictive value (PPV) = 86%; negative predictive value (NPV) =96%; accuracy = 96%. Pap smear for bacterial vaginosis: sensitivity = 75%; specificity = 100%; positive predictive value (PPV) = 100%; negative predictive value (NPV) =94%; accuracy = 95%. There was only one case of vaginal trichomoniasis reported – diagnosed by oncological cytology and wet mount – confirmed by Gram. The syndromic approach diagnosed it as bacterial vaginosis. From the data generated and with support on world literature, the Maternidade Escola Januário Cicco’s vulvovaginitis protocol was constructed. Conclusion: Pap smear and wet mount showed respectively low and very low sensitivity for vaginal candidiasis. Syndromic approach presented very low specificity and accuracy for bacterial vaginosis, which implies a large number of patients who are diagnosed or treated incorrectly.

Velocidade da marcha como preditor de fragilidade em uma amostra populacional de idosos brasileiros

Gait speed has been described as a predictive indicator of important adverse outcomes in older populations. Among the criteria to evaluate frailty, gait speed has been identified as the most reliable predictor of fragility, practical and low cost. Objective: This study assesses the discriminating capability of gait speed in determining the presence of fragility in the elderly community in northeast of Brazil. Method: We performed an observational analytic study with a transversal character with a sample of 391 community-living elders, aged 65 years or older, of both sexes, in the city of Santa Cruz-RN. Participants were interviewed using a multidimensional questionnaire to obtain sociodemographic information, physical-related and mental health-related information. The unintentional weight loss, muscle weakness, self-reported exhaustion, slow gait and low-physical activity were considered to evaluate the frailty syndrome. Gait velocity was measured as the time taken to walk the middle 4,6 meters of 8,6 meters (excluding 2 meters to warm-up phase and 2 meters to deceleration phase).We calculate the sensitivity and specificity of gait speed test in different cutoff points for the test run time, from which ROC curve was constructed as a measure of test predictive value to identify frail elders. The prevalence of frailty in Santa Cruz-RN was 17.1%. The gait speed test accuracy was 71%when speed is below 0,91m/s. Among women, the gait speed test accuracy was 80%(gait speed below 0.77m/s) and among men, the test accuracy was 86% (gait spend below 0,82%) (p<0,0001).Conclusion: our findings have clinical relevance when we consider that the detection of frailty presence by the gait speed test can be observed in elderly men and women by a simple, cheap and efficient exam