assessing the need for routine screening for mycoplasma genitalium in the low‑risk female population: a prevalence and co‑infection study on women from croatia

Background: there is an ongoing debate regarding possible cost and benefts, but also harm of universal screening for the emerging sexually transmitted pathogen mycoplasma genitalium. methods: from the initial pool of 8665 samples that were tested, a subset of chlamydia trachomatis‑positive and randomly selected c. trachomatis‑negative cervical swabs were further interrogated for m. genitalium by real‑time polymerase chain reaction, using a 224 bp long fragment of the glyceraldehyde‑3‑phosphate dehydrogenase gene. results: m. genitalium was detected in 4.8% of c. trachomatis‑positive samples and none of c. trachomatis‑negative samples. accordingly, a signifcant association was shown between m. genitalium and c. trachomatis (p < 0.01), but also between m. genitalium and mycoplasma hominis infection (p < 0.01). conclusions: based on the results, routine screening is recommended only for women with one or more identifed risk factors. moreover, younger age does not represent an appropriate inclusion/exclusion criterion for m. genitalium testing in the low‑risk female population.