Pelvic inflammatory disease associated with Chlamydia trachomatis but not Mycoplasma genitalium in New Zealand.

UNLABELLED

Background There is a paucity of studies looking at associations between Mycoplasma genitalium and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). The objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of M. genitalium in women attending a sexual health service in New Zealand and secondly to examine for an association of M. genitalium with PID.

METHODS

Women consecutively attending the service for a sexual health screen (Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Trichomonas vaginalis) were recruited to establish a baseline prevalence of M. genitalium. An extra cervical swab was taken for the detection of M. genitalium. Recruitment of additional women with a clinical diagnosis of PID continued until a sufficient sample size was obtained to examine the association of PID with M. genitalium. Women in the baseline sample without PID were used as the control group.

RESULTS

The control group included 250 women, with M. genitalium diagnosed in 8.7% (95% CI 5.8-12.9%) and C. trachomatis in 9.9% (95% CI 6.8-14.2%). Ninety-one women were recruited with PID; M. genitalium was diagnosed in 9.9% (95% CI 5.3-17.7%) and C. trachomatis in 27.5% (95% CI 19.4-37.4%). Multivariate analysis using clinically relevant variables showed that a diagnosis of C. trachomatis (OR 2.44, 95% CI 1.24-4.81) but not M. genitalium (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.38-2.20) was significantly associated with a PID diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

M. genitalium was almost as commonly diagnosed as C. trachomatis in this population. C. trachomatis was the only infection that was significantly associated with PID.