Quantitative microflora of the vagina

Abstract

This study enumerated the predominant vaginal flora in 25 healthy patients: 18 prenatal (six with and 12 without gonorrhea) and seven nonpregnant without gonorrhea. All 25 patients had aerobes and 19 of the 25 had anerobes isolated in titers of greater than or equal to 10(5) colony-forming units (CFU per milliliter). The most frequently isolated microorganism was the lactobacillus (aerobic and anaerobic species) followed by C. vaginale, viridans streptococci, anaerobic gram-positive cocci, and Bifidobacterium sp. Bacteroides fragilis was not isolated. There were no significant differences in the frequency of isolation of any specific microorganism or bacterial counts between pregnant and nonpregnant women or between pregnant women with and without gonorrhea (p greater than 0.05), except pregnant patients had significantly higher total facultative counts associated with significantly lower anaerobic lactobacilli counts and higher C. vaginale counts (p less than 0.01) than in nonpregnant patients.