Routine testing for Mycoplasma genitalium is not warranted, according to infectious diseases doctors, providing the first data on the epidemiology of the concerning STI from an Australian hospital.

Writing in the MJA this week, the doctors from Monash Medical Centre, in Melbourne, say their findings have important implications for multiplex STI nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT), given that the significance of detecting the bacterium in asymptomatic patients remains unclear.

Over a three-month period in 2017, they tested 1176 patients opportunistically for M. genitalium during routine STI testing using multiplex NAAT when it was requested by doctors for ED patients, admitted patients or those in outpatient clinics.

The average age of the patients returning positive tests was about 24, and they were more than four times more likely than those testing negative to have a chlamydia co-infection and seven times as likely to be co-infected with gonorrhoea.