Background: Mycoplasma genitalium and Mycoplasma hominis are among the major causes of vaginosis, which their detection is difficult in culture media. The aim of this study was to compare two detection methods (PCR and conventional culture media) for the determination of frequency of these bacteria among women with vaginal infection.

Material and Methods: For this purpose, we conducted a study for patients with bacterial vaginosis admitted to Imam Zaman and Imam Khomeini Hospitals (n=250) in comparison with healthy women with no vaginal infections (n=150). The extracted DNA was used as template to amplify 16srRNA coding gene using specific primers in two separate PCR reactions. Then the data were analyzed using the logistic regression at the P<0.05 significant level.

Results: The results indicated that 38% and 46.8% of Mycoplasma genitalium and Mycoplasma hominis were positive in culture, while this was the case in 68.8% and 77% of samples in PCR, respectively. The results show that the using PCR for molecular identification of bacteria is highly accurate, sensitive and particularly specific, where the culture negative samples were detected by this method.

Conclusion: For the detection of Mycoplasma genitalium and hominis among the vaginotic cases PCR is a highly reliable and sensitive method compared to the culture media. Using specific primers, PCR can confidently detect and separate infectious agents even in the genesis and species level.