Evaluation of commercially available tests for Chlamydia nucleic acid detection in synovial fluid of patients

Since the presence of Chlamydia nucleic acids has been shown in synovialfluid (SF) from some patients with Chlamydia reactive arthritis, weinvestigated whether commercially available tests, developed to detectChlamydia nucleic acids in urogenital samples, could also be used for theirdetection in SF samples. We therefore tested SF samples, found positivewith at least two different systems of DNA amplification in a previousstudy, with three commercially available kits. No positive results wereobtained. It is concluded that the commercially available tests Gen-ProbePACE 2, Amplicor (developed by Roche Molecular Systems) and LCx (developedby Abbott Laboratories) do not have sufficient sensitivity to detectreliably Chlamydia RNA or DNA in SF.