Review of 2005 Public Health Laboratory Network Neisseria gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification tests guidelines.

At the request of the Public Health Laboratory Network (PHLN), the National Neisseria Network (NNN) met to discuss the 2009 PHLN Neisseria gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) guidelines and the need for supplementary testing. A central point of discussion at this NNN meeting, which took place in May 2013, was the potential for N. gonorrhoeae supplementary testing to lead to false-negative results. Data were presented at the meeting that questioned the sensitivity of commonly used in-house supplementary methods as compared with later generation commercial NAAT systems. It was the opinion of the NNN that supplementary testing remains best practice, but that caution should be used when reporting negative results. The NNN recommends that urogenital samples providing a positive result in a screening method and a negative result by a supplemental method should not be reported as negative for N. gonorrhoeae without an appropriate explanatory comment indicating that gonococcal infection cannot be excluded.