{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,20]],"date-time":"2026-07-20T02:02:03Z","timestamp":1784512923826,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,18]],"date-time":"2026-07-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784332800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Medicina"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background and Objectives: Culture-based cervicovaginal assessment in late pregnancy may reveal bacterial and fungal findings beyond routine Group B Streptococcus (GBS) detection; however, third-trimester non-GBS findings remain insufficiently characterized. This study aimed to describe the distribution of culture-based cervicovaginal findings and to explore the associations between culture-confirmed Candida colonization and maternal, obstetric, and microscopic parameters. Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study included 300 third-trimester pregnant women at \u226528 gestational weeks who were receiving routine antenatal care at a tertiary center. Cervicovaginal samples were obtained using sterile swabs and analyzed with conventional culture-based methods. Findings were categorized according to the identified microorganisms, and GBS positivity was recorded. For Candida-focused analyses, only samples reported as fecal contamination were excluded; women with GBS-positive cervicovaginal cultures were retained in the evaluable cohort. Associations were evaluated using the Mann\u2013Whitney U test and Fisher\u2019s exact test. Results: The mean maternal age was 26.48 \u00b1 5.67 years. Normal vaginal flora was observed in 252 women (84.0%). Candida colonization was the most frequent non-GBS finding, identified in 35 women (11.7%), whereas GBS was detected in seven women (2.3%). Other non-GBS bacterial isolates and fecal contamination were reported in four women (1.3%) and two samples (0.7%), respectively. Clue cells, direct microscopic yeast positivity, and Trichomonas vaginalis were identified in 20 women (6.7%), 12 women (4.0%), and 6 women (2.0%), respectively. After excluding samples reported as fecal contamination, 298 evaluable cervicovaginal cultures were included in the Candida-focused analysis. Direct microscopic yeast detection was more frequent among women with culture-confirmed Candida colonization than among those without colonization (14.3% vs. 2.3%, p = 0.005), whereas Candida colonization was not associated with maternal age, gravidity, parity, gestational age, clue cell positivity, Trichomonas vaginalis positivity, or GBS-positive cervicovaginal culture. Conclusions: In third-trimester pregnancy, culture-based cervicovaginal assessment showed that Candida colonization was the most prominent non-GBS finding. The higher detection rate of culture-confirmed Candida colonization compared with direct microscopic yeast positivity suggests that microscopy alone may underestimate fungal colonization. These findings suggest that reporting non-GBS culture-based cervicovaginal findings may provide additional descriptive microbiological information beyond routine GBS detection in late pregnancy; however, they should not be interpreted as evidence of clinical outcome associations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/medicina62071389","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,20]],"date-time":"2026-07-20T00:47:32Z","timestamp":1784508452000},"page":"1389","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Culture-Based Cervicovaginal Findings and Candida Colonization in Third-Trimester Pregnancy: A Prospective Observational Study"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"62","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0206-1697","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ay\u015fe","family":"Haz\u0131rbulan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, 06230 Ankara, T\u00fcrkiye"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yusuf","family":"\u00dcst\u00fcn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, 06230 Ankara, T\u00fcrkiye"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mihriban","family":"Y\u00fccel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Microbiology, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, 06230 Ankara, T\u00fcrkiye"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"451","DOI":"10.1113\/JP271694","article-title":"The Vaginal Microbiota, Host Defence and Reproductive Physiology","volume":"595","author":"Smith","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. 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