ArticleSexually transmitted infections2016
Inflammatory cytokine biomarkers to identify women with asymptomatic sexually transmitted infections and bacterial vaginosis who are at high risk of HIV infection.
Article in Sexually transmitted infections, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 77 citations in OpenAlex.
- Vaginal Bacteria and Proinflammatory Host Immune Mediators as Biomarkers of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Acquisition Risk Among African Women.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Persistent, Asymptomatic Colonization withMicrobiology spectrum · 2022Trial
- molBV reveals immune landscape of bacterial vaginosis and predicts human papillomavirus infection natural history.Nature communications · 2022Trial
- Higher mucosal antibody concentrations in women with genital tract inflammation.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Testing the regulatory framework in South Africa - a single-blind randomized pilot trial of commercial probiotic supplementation to standard therapy in women with bacterial vaginosis.BMC infectious diseases · 2020Trial
- Live attenuated varicella-zoster virus vaccine does not induce HIV target cell activation.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Integrated multi-omics analysis uncovers cervicovaginal ecological networks and their association withInfection and immunity · 2026Article
- Cervicovaginal cytokine profiles and their associations with colposcopic findings in adolescent girls and adult women in South Africa: an exploratory cross-sectional study.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- The Nugent score is an inappropriate diagnostic tool for neovaginal bacteria in transfeminine people.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- The vaginal microbiota, symptoms, and local immune correlates in transmasculine individuals using sustained testosterone therapy.Cell reports · 2025Article
- The cervicovaginal microbiome associates with spatially restricted host transcriptional signatures throughout the human ectocervical epithelium and submucosa.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- The Futility of Nugent Scoring as a Diagnostic Tool for Neovaginal Bacterial Dysbiosis in Transfeminine People.Research square · 2025Article
- Article
- Human Cervix Chip: A Preclinical Model for Studying the Role of the Cervical Mucosa and Microbiome in Female Reproductive Health.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- Association between changes in genital immune markers and vaginal microbiome transitions in bacterial vaginosis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The impact of sex on HIV immunopathogenesis and therapeutic interventions.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2024Review
- Characterising plasmacytoid and myeloid AXL+ SIGLEC-6+ dendritic cell functions and their interactions with HIV.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 8 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUntreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and bacterial vaginosis (BV) cause genital inflammation and increase the risk of HIV infection. WHO-recommended syndromic STI and BV management is severely limited as many women with asymptomatic infections go untreated. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate genital cytokine profiles as a biomarker of STIs and BV to identify women with asymptomatic, treatable infections.
methodsConcentrations of 42 cytokines in cervicovaginal lavages from 227 HIV-uninfected women were measured using Luminex. All women were screened for BV by microscopy and STIs using molecular assays. Multivariate analyses were used to identify cytokine profiles associated with STIs/BV.
resultsA multivariate profile of seven cytokines (interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-1β, tumour necrosis factor-β, IL-4, fractalkine, macrophage-derived chemokine, and interferon-γ) most accurately predicted the presence of a treatable genital condition, with 77% classification accuracy and 75% cross-validation accuracy (sensitivity 72%; specificity 81%, positive predictive value (PPV) 86%, negative predictive value (NPV) 64%). Concomitant increased IL-1β and decreased IP-10 concentrations predicted the presence of a treatable genital condition without a substantial reduction in predictive value (sensitivity 77%, specificity 72%, PPV 82% and NPV 65%), correctly classifying 75% of the women. This approach performed substantially better than clinical signs (sensitivity 19%, specificity 92%, PPV 79% and NPV 40%).
conclusionsSupplementing syndromic management with an assessment of IL-1β and IP-10 as biomarkers of genital inflammation may improve STI/BV management for women, enabling more effective treatment of asymptomatic infections and potentially reducing their risk of HIV infection.
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Registered trials
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