ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Clinical and Diagnostic Microbiology and Immunology
Application of Microfluidic Chip-Based Multiplex PCR in Diagnosing Reproductive Tract Pathogens Among Patients with Premature Rupture of Membranes
Provisionally accepted
Liuyan Zhang*
Zhoujie Shao- Beilun District People's Hospital of Ningbo, Ningbo, China
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Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of a microfluidic chip-based multiplex PCR method for detecting common reproductive tract pathogens in patients with premature rupture of membranes (PROM). Methods: A total of 200 patients with PROM were recruited from January 2020 to December 2024. Clinical samples were collected and analyzed using a microfluidic chip-based multiplex PCR method to detect six common reproductive tract pathogens. Clinical etiological diagnosis was used as the reference standard to assess the diagnostic efficacy of the method. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and consistency were calculated using 2 × 2 contingency tables. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to further evaluate the diagnostic performance. Results: The mean age of the patients was 30.5 years ± 4.2 years, and the mean gestational age was 32.7 ± 3.4 weeks. The most frequently detected pathogen was Escherichia coli (28.0%), followed by Candida albicans (21.0%) and Chlamydia trachomatis (19.0%). The microfluidic chip-based multiplex PCR method demonstrated high sensitivity (95.6%), specificity (98.2%), PPV (94.2%), and NPV (97.8%). ROC curve analysis revealed excellent diagnostic performance for all pathogens, with area under the curve (AUC) values ranging from 0.93 to 0.98. Conclusion: The microfluidic chip-based multiplex PCR method provides a highly sensitive, specific, and reliable diagnostic tool for detecting reproductive tract pathogens in patients with PROM.
Keywords: Premature rupture of membranes (PROM), Microfluidic chip, multiplex PCR, Reproductive tract pathogens, Diagnostic performance
Received: 11 Oct 2025; Accepted: 30 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang and Shao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Liuyan Zhang
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